These people are surviving this alien onslaught, and they're all kind of eccentric and weird, but you love them.' And that's what we really, really wanted to have in there. And in this great moment of crisis, you see that humans are completely insane, but kind of awesome. That was also the impetus for the original Serious Sam 4 subtitle, Planet Badass, which was literally lost in translation: 'The idea was, Earth is kind of awesome, and humans are awesome. So that's kind of what we were going for.' 'You kind of miss the more heroic, people working together to achieve some end and being funny at the same time, that kind of storytelling that has a more positive view of humanity. 'Everything is incredibly grim, everything is, 'Oh, we stab each other in the back and everything is miserable',' he continued. Some of that approach emerged as a reaction to the relentless cynicism that's become popular in mainstream entertainment, primarily on television shows but also in games.

It has moments of proper humanity, between the characters but also between what Sam stands for and what the villain stands for.' 'It's silly, it's goofy in places, it's serious in places too. This is a completely sincere take,' he said. 'And I think that's very importunate about Serious Sam 4. He compared it instead to John Carpenter movies, or some of the better Roger Corman stuff, that are typically low-budget, strange and silly, but also sincere. He also emphasized that while it's obviously going to be silly in spots-remember the Popemobile-the game isn't meant to be a parody in any way. You see Sam actually joking around with people, and he's still very recognizably Serious Sam, but he has actual friendships, he has people he cares about.' 'You've got your friends there, the stakes are more personal-its the whole Earth being destroyed obviously, but also the people you care about.

The whole game is more personal,' he said. For Serious Sam 4, Kyratzes' goal was to make the world and the people in it 'feel more alive and active.' That includes not just Sam himself, but also the 'cast of likeable B-movie idiots' who make up the team he leads.

Serious sam character