Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter
BANGER · Shooter · 2019
Steam Deck UnsupportedThe verdict
WAIT.
A BANGER today. The Winter Sale opens Dec 17, and it was discounted in 8 of its last 8 seasonal sales; 80% in the Winter Sale 2025.
Today
$5.99BANGER
Typical seasonal cut
$0.8985% offBANGER
- Cost per hourS
- $0.92/hr
- ReviewsS
- 96% of 3,539
- Critics
- 87 players 9 higher
- Genre rank
- Top 2% Shooter
Watch this gameOne alert at $0.89 or less.
Time and effort
- Main story
- 6.5h
- To 100%
- 13.3h 2.0x the story
Price and sales
- Sales
- 97 on record
- Typical cut
- 80% off
- Steam low
- $0.59 July 2013
- Sale every
- 40d last October 2026
Players and genre
- Online
- 9 now
- Cheaper than
- 68% of its genre
- Better reviewed
- 96% of its genre
Price and player charts
The value story
The value story
Across all 97 discounts in the 14 years tracked, the median cut is 80 percent, about 6 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended about 4 weeks ago.
Its score puts it in the top 2 percent of the games it competes with. It is cheaper than 68 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 96 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Serious Sam Classic: The Second Encounter ($5.99, scores 94) beats it on value, while it beats Serious Sam Classics: Revolution ($9.99, scores 80).
$7.52 is where it would stop being a BANGER. It is priced at $5.99.
More about Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter
The press gave it 87; the people who bought it give it 96 percent. A 9-point gap in the buyer's favour.
2 of the 388 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written March 2020 to October 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 94 percent of the 802 reviews written there were positive, against 96 percent overall, and those are 26 percent of everything written about it.
The main story runs 6.5 hours. Doing everything runs 13, 2.0 times as long.
Buy now or wait
Buy now or wait
Last discount ended 31 days ago.
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
Grades: S best, D weakest
S is the best grade and D the weakest, judged as a buyer. ▲ raises the score, ▼ lowers it, ? is an input we do not have, • is a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
What players say
been playing SAM since i was 5 years old with my dad growing up on the retail CDs. It's still one of my favorite games ever TFE and TSE classics games are part of my childhood and if you like oldschool FPS then i would reccomend you to play Seriously
2 more reviews
Basically, you just forget about the story and kill everything in front of you. You collect weapons and ammo in Ancient Egypt and kill whatever creatures you come across. That's pretty much the whole game. There's no complicated story or mind-bending puzzles. The thing that makes the game fun is that you're constantly in combat. At a time when FPS games were moving toward being more focused on story and atmosphere...
I originally played this on my late Grandfathers Xbox Original console. i must have been no older than 5. Amazing stuff.
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
About the game
Serious Sam is a high-adrenaline single-play and 16-player co-operative arcade-action FPS and Gamespot's Game of the Year 2001!
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 61 MB of memory, full OpenGL compliant 3D accelerator, 604 MB of storage. Windows only.
No data upstream: achievement curve (Steam global achievements).
Cite this score
Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter scores 89/100 on the BANG Score (a BANGER) as of Nov 8, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/41050/serious-sam-classic-the-first-encounterReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Nov 1, price as of Nov 7. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.