Serious Sam: The First Encounter is a first-person shooter video game developed by Croteam and originally published by Gathering of Developers, first released on Microsoft Windows on 21 March 2001. It had been in development since 1996 and had videos showing its early gameplay in 2000. The First Encounter was originally developed by Croteam as a demonstrator for their engine, which was why some countries saw its initial release priced at less than half the price of other games in the genre. This game was followed by a sequel, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, released eleven months later. The series follows the adventures of protagonist Sam "Serious" Stone and his fight against the forces of the notorious extraterrestrial overlord Mental, who seeks to destroy humanity. Sam travels through various locations in Ancient Egypt, fighting hordes of Mental's army with a wide arsenal of weapons including shotguns, a minigun, a rocket launcher, and a high-powered portable cannon. Both The First Encounter and The Second Encounter were combined into one game and ported to the Xbox. High-definition remakes of both episodes were released in 2009 and 2010 on Microsoft Windows, and were later ported to the Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One video game consoles. Gameplay Serious Sam: The First Encounter'''s gameplay consists almost entirely of the player attempting to defeat dozens of enemies at a time in wide open arena-like areas and thus is relatively simple. The game's story establishes the reasons and methods for how the player travels from chapter to chapter through the game's menu system, a brain implant called NETRISCA that also provides hints, descriptions of enemy types, and information on weapons the player collects. Enemies spawn frequently and attack in large waves from across the game map, and the player is meant to dodge their projectiles and physical attacks by jumping and strafing rather than by taking cover. Health and armor are non-regenerative on all difficulty levels except for the easiest and instead are replenished with health and armor packs which are littered throughout the game. Available health and armor integrity are represented by percentage numbers on the screen. The combat is high-paced and frenetic, with each level consisting of a series of elaborate arenas, in which the player will defeat a set number of re-spawning enemies before proceeding to the next. Enemies range from "Beheaded", which are normal soldiers armed with rocket launchers