Shotgun

Lore & Background

In the Serious Sam universe the shotgun is a standard-issue sidearm found in military armories and police lockers across the globe. Its design is deliberately unflashy compared to the alien-tech weapons Sam encounters later in each campaign; it is a workhorse tool, the kind of firearm a border patrol or a small-town sheriff would keep in the drawer. Croteam's art direction treats it as a grounded, utilitarian object—steel receiver, wooden or polymer stock, a simple tubular magazine beneath the barrel.

Narratively, the shotgun represents the 'before' in Sam's escalation. The player first picks it up while still dealing with conventional human-scale threats or the earliest wave of alien incursion. By the time the player is dodging plasma bolts from a Behemoth or juggling a minigun against a horde, the shotgun sits in the back of the inventory as a nostalgic, almost sentimental option—reliable, familiar, and still lethal if the situation compresses to a hallway or a doorway.

The weapon's role in the lore mirrors its mechanical identity: it is not the hero's signature. It is the tool you reach for when everything else is out of shells and the thing with six eyes is already on top of you.

In Their Own Story

The corridor reeks of ozone and wet fur. Sam's minigun clicks dry, the last three rounds spat into the ceiling. Something heavy slams the door at the far end of the hall, and the hinges groan inward. He drops the empty gun, racks the pump on the shotgun, and feels the cold steel of the receiver under his palm. The door buckles. A clawed hand—grey, slick, too many joints—reaches through the gap. He doesn't aim. He doesn't need to. One pump, one trigger pull, and the pellet cloud erases the hand, the face behind it, and the thing's forward momentum. The body hits the wall and slides. Sam racks the slide again, steps over the mess, and keeps walking. Somewhere ahead, a rocket launcher is waiting. But right now, this is enough.

Reader's Guide

Silhouette and feel: The Shotgun reads as a classic pump-action—long barrel, tubular magazine, and a distinct forward handguard. Firing it feels immediate and punchy; the recoil kick is sharp but manageable, and the pump cycle between shots adds a tactile rhythm that sets it apart from the auto-fire weapons in the arsenal.

Damage profile: Each trigger pull releases a cone of pellets that deals heavy damage at close range, tapering off quickly beyond medium distance. A point-blank hit on a standard enemy is often lethal in one or two pumps. Against large, high-health targets the shotgun chips rather than kills, so it shines against swarms and in enclosed spaces.

Ammo: Shotgun shells, found in wooden crates and ammo caches throughout levels. Shell counts are modest compared to rifle or pistol magazines, so conservation matters in long engagements.

First availability: The shotgun drops in the early levels of The First Encounter, making it one of the first spread weapons the player encounters.

Fan verdict: A crowd-pleaser. Players who enjoy aggressive, in-your-face combat gravitate to it, and it remains a go-to for speedruns and close-quarters chaos. It is not a niche pick.

Version notes: The shotgun has appeared in every mainline Serious Sam title. Magazine capacity, pellet count, and damage values have shifted between The First Encounter, The Second Encounter, Serious Sam 2, Serious Sam 3: BFE, and Serious Sam 4, with later entries generally tuning spread tighter and damage per pellet higher to keep the weapon relevant against scaled-up enemy health pools.

Did You Know?

• The Shotgun is one of the few weapons in the Serious Sam series that uses a manual pump action between shots, giving it a distinct firing rhythm compared to the fully automatic minigun or the semi-automatic rifle.
• In Serious Sam 3: BFE the shotgun can be customized with different attachments, altering its spread and damage characteristics, a feature that expands on the fixed-stat design of the earlier 2D-engine titles.
• The shotgun's pellet spread makes it uniquely effective in the tight, corridor-heavy levels of the first two games, where enemies frequently spawn at close range before the player can back off.
• Across the franchise the shotgun is consistently available early in the campaign, serving as the player's first introduction to area-of-effect damage before more powerful weapons are unlocked.