What the game is
Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter is a first-person arcade shooter built for VR, and it's the sequel to Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter. You fight through chaotic waves of enemies across South America, ancient Mesopotamia and Medieval Europe, with over 130 hidden secrets to uncover along the way. The campaign throws five new enemies and three bosses at you, and you can pick from five difficulty settings depending on how much punishment you want. The whole thing runs on the Serious Engine 2017 and is integrated with Serious Sam Fusion 2017, which delivers free updates through the central hub.
Playing it with your group
The co-op campaign runs 12 levels and supports several difficulty settings, so your group can tune it to your taste. Enemy strength scales up based on player count, and you can toggle friendly fire and infinite ammo. There's also an option to play the entire co-op campaign in classic 80's arcade style with limited lives. Beyond co-op, versus multiplayer supports up to 16 players across a range of modes: Beast Hunt and Team Beast Hunt, Survival and Team Survival, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, My Burden, Last Man Standing and Last Team Standing, Capture the Flag, and Instant Kill. Some versus modes are built on campaign levels. Cross-platform play with the non-VR version is supported, so you can mix motion controllers and keyboard & mouse players.
Before you start
Movement is adjustable, which matters in VR. You can use the built-in blink teleportation via Sam's translocator to dodge charging enemies, switch to Serious Warp locomotion, or go full smooth trackpad/analog stick movement. Pick what suits you before diving in. You hold a weapon in each hand, so you can mix weapons or dual-wield the same one, and the arsenal includes the Sniper Rifle, Flamethrower and Chainsaw. Steam Workshop support lets you download player-made mods or submit your own. The DLC Legend of the Beast is included with the VR version.