Small UFO

Lore & Background

In the lore of the Serious Sam universe, the alien incursion is a broad, multi-species assault on human civilization. The Small UFO is not a flagship or a command vessel; it is a disposable skirmisher, a cheap aerial platform mass-produced by the alien war effort to saturate the skies above a battlefield. Croteam's games present it as one rung on a ladder of threats, sitting below heavier craft and above the basic ground grunts.

Its design language is deliberately simple: a shallow disc, a dim under-glow, and a single emitter. There is no cockpit, no visible crew. It reads as a drone, a bolt of metal fired from a larger fleet, programmed to hover at a fixed altitude and keep its gun trained on the player. When destroyed, it tumbles and disintegrates in a small burst of sparks, adding to the chaotic debris field that is a hallmark of the series' combat.

Across the franchise the Small UFO has remained a staple of the enemy roster, a reliable mid-fight nuisance that forces the player to tilt their aim upward while managing ground threats. Its persistence across multiple titles cements it as part of the series' visual vocabulary of alien warfare.

In Their Own Story

The sky over the courtyard was already crowded. Three of them—no, four—drifted in a ragged diamond, their undersides pulsing a sickly amber. Sam raised his shotgun, felt the familiar weight settle into his shoulders, and fired a tight spread into the lowest one. It spun, shed a chunk of hull, and went down in a shower of orange sparks that hissed against the stone pavement. The remaining three fanned out, circling wider, and the courtyard filled with the thin, reedy *tss-tss-tss* of their bolts stitching the flagstones. He popped one, then the next, each taking a single clean hit. The last one banked hard, tried to break off toward the archway, and he tracked it with a second shotgun blast. It cracked apart over the fountain, and the water erupted in a brief, glittering spray before the silence rushed back in.

Reader's Guide

Visually, the Small UFO is a shallow, metallic disc—think a small flying saucer with a dim glowing underside and a single forward or downward emitter. It is noticeably smaller than any heavy or boss-class craft in the series, and its silhouette is instantly readable even at range: a flat, saucer-shaped glint against the sky.

In combat it serves as a light aerial harasser. It hovers at a medium-to-high altitude, strafes in loose arcs, and fires short bursts of projectiles at the player. It has very low health; a single well-aimed shot from a shotgun, SMG, or rifle will typically destroy it. Because it arrives in groups of three to six or more, the real challenge is tracking multiple targets while also dealing with ground enemies.

The Small UFO appears from the earliest Serious Sam titles and carries forward through subsequent entries as a standard roster enemy. It is not a boss and does not have a unique fight choreography. Its counter is straightforward: any weapon with reasonable accuracy and fire rate will down it in one or two hits. Shotguns and SMGs are particularly effective because the tight spread compensates for its lateral movement.

Across the series the enemy has received visual updates to match each game's art direction, but its core behavior—hover, strafe, fire in bursts, die in one or two shots—has remained consistent. It is a swarm filler, not a standalone threat, and is best dealt with quickly so it does not compound the pressure of a larger wave.

Did You Know?

• The Small UFO is designed as a disposable swarm unit: it has very low health and is meant to be shot down in one or two hits, making it a target for rapid-fire weapons rather than heavy ones.
• It consistently appears in small groups rather than as a lone enemy, functioning as an aerial layer on top of ground-based alien waves.
• The enemy has persisted across multiple Serious Sam titles, evolving its visual design to match each game's art style while keeping the same core hover-and-shoot behavior.
• Its destruction produces a small burst of sparks and debris that can briefly obscure the player's view, adding a minor visual penalty to the moment of kill.