Serious Sam Double D XXL has 'high chance' of PC version

Serious Sam Double D was the title character's first venture into 2D space and he arrived with guns blazing....

Ozzie Mejia

February 5, 2013 5:00 PM

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Serious Sam Double D was the titular character's first venture into 2D space and he arrived with guns blazing. Unfortunately, the accompanying Xbox Live Arcade version never saw the light of day. That's not to say developer Mommy's Best Games wasn't serious about bringing Sam Stone to XBLA. A year and a half later, Serious Sam's 2D adventure is finally set to release as Serious Sam Double D XXL. Mommy's Best Games founder Nathan Fouts explained the reasons for the delays.

"I took a good break after we finished Double D on Steam," Fouts tells Shacknews. "I started on an early port of an Xbox 360 version in December 2011, getting a rough build working on the console. Then I took another break with other projects, as [Serious Sam publisher] Devolver and Mommy's Best Games sorted out what we would want in an XBLA version. What would make it worth releasing? Once we settled on all the new features, it took time to implement them and then even more time to make sure the game following all the strict specifications for XBLA."

The delay has led to something significantly bigger, compared to the 2011 PC original. XXL will feature five times as many guns, bringing the arsenal count to 40. Players will find new levels, along with many of Double D's original levels receiving new arrangements. Fouts says that this is in response to player feedback from the original game. "The main issues were pacing in the game," he explained. "To address this, the new gun upgrades offer loads more strategy now, and the levels present the player with more types of tricky action to sort out. There are places to use all this new strategy and there are some breaks to the constant shooting."

By far, however, the biggest addition to XXL is two-player co-op, something Fouts says has been added by popular demand. "There's a sizable Serious Sam install base and two-player co-op was the biggest feature they requested, in large numbers," he added. "Now, I regret that we couldn't do co-op online, but the couch co-op is extremely fun and worth it to get a bud to come over and enjoy some gun-stacking and monster-killing."

Of course, with so much energy going into this Xbox LIVE Arcade effort, it's easy to forget that Serious Sam originally made his name on PC. With XXL feeling like a drastic leap forward over the original Double D, PC players may feel anxious to get their hands on the new hotness, as well. Fortunately, Fouts says that "there is a high chance" of XXL eventually making it onto PC.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?