Serious Engine

Lore & Background

Serious Engine 3 was used to support the high-definition remakes of The First Encounter and The Second Encounter for release on Windows and Xbox 360, adding in true high-dynamic lighting support. As Croteam wanted to target more platforms with the release of Serious Sam 3: BFE, Serious Engine 3 was heavily reworked to support seventh-generation consoles, and became Serious Engine 3.5. With the introduction of eighth-generation consoles, Croteam continued to improve the Serious Engine, releasing it as Serious Engine 4, which premiered with The Talos Principle.

Serious Engine was also used in Serious Sam 4. In celebration of Serious Sam: The First Encounter's 15th anniversary in March 2016, Croteam released the source code for the final version of the first iteration of Serious Engine, version 1.10, under the GNU GPL-2-0-only. For The Talos Principle 2, Croteam replaced Serious Engine with Unreal Engine 4, ultimately switching to Unreal Engine 5.

Reader's Guide

Serious Engine is a proprietary game engine developed by Croteam. It was first used in Serious Sam: The First Encounter (2001). Subsequent versions include Serious Engine 2 (for Serious Sam 2, 2005), Serious Engine 3 (for HD remakes), Serious Engine 3.5 (for Serious Sam 3: BFE, 2011), and Serious Engine 4 (for The Talos Principle, 2014, and Serious Sam 4, 2020). The source code for Serious Engine 1.10 was released under GNU GPL-2.0-only in 2016. Croteam has since transitioned to Unreal Engine for The Talos Principle 2.