Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem: Tips & Tricks for Beginners

by Yannis Vatis / Articles, Serious Sam / 01 Jan 2023

Serious Sam was, is, and always will be the ultimate horde-clearing FPS game, and Siberian Mayhem continues the tradition. With tons of new toys to play with and enemies to blow up, the fun is bigger and better than ever before. Even though it’s not a hard title to wrap your head around, it can get a bit tricky, particularly when you play in higher difficulty modes.

Strap yourself in and get ready to wreak havoc as we give you the best Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem tips and tricks for beginners.

Spec for Dual Wield

Dual-wielding your weapons is a staple of the Serious Sam franchise. In Siberian Mayhem, you can unlock talents that allow you to hold two of the same weapon in each hand. There are several tiers, each targeting a specific type of gun, with the most important being Dual Wield Harder. It allows you to akimbo two-handed weapons, such as the shotgun and AK-47, making them twice as effective. As waves of enemies only become far more overwhelming the deeper you go into the game, it’s important to rush this talent as quickly as possible.

Prioritize Close Enemies

Waves in Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem are designed to overwhelm you and ultimately chew down into a pulp. To achieve this mission, they mix in a variety of enemy types, some of which rush to get close to you. While you can try to prevent this as best as you can, you’ll eventually have to deal with an onslaught of Kamikazes and other close-quarter enemies. It’s essential to prioritize these closer foes as they’ll inevitably get way too close for comfort in large numbers, to the point where not even your twin shotguns can save you.

One significant exception to this prioritization is the Aludran Reptiloids. These enemies will mostly remain at a distance, but it’s imperative that you take them out as quickly as possible. They fire homing green balls of death that deal massive damage, making the Reptiloids a priority target.

Learn to Use the Crossbow

The Crossbow is one of the most fun additions from Siberian Mayhem. It’s a powerful weapon that can snipe foes from afar with deadly accuracy while a the same time serving as a great wave clear tool. What makes it so remarkable is its ability to one-shot enemies in a line behind your primary target if you can aim for the head reliably. It also clears out low health enemies with body shots. It’s for this reason that you need to get as accustomed to the Crossbow as possible. Learning to land those devastating shots will make controlling crowds so much more manageable.

Use the Right Tools

Sam’s various weapons aren’t just made for show and stomping butt-ugly enemies with abandon. Each of them has its own use. The AK-47 is an ideal all-rounder weapon that can annihilate foes at mid-range via tap firing. Launching single rockets against energy shield-bearing enemies will relieve them of their defenses, giving a much-needed opening. Dual-wielding double-barrel shotguns are the perfect way to deal with Kleers. You can make quick work of Beheaded Soldiers by kicking them. And finally, two cannonballs in a tower’s weak spot are enough to destroy it.

Switch Perspectives

One of the best features of Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is the on-the-fly change of perspective. You can go from first-person to third-person view with a single button, giving you different viewpoint advantages depending on the situation. While first-person perspective will allow you to aim and line up shots more effectively, third-person will provide you with the best camera for checking your surroundings. If you begin to feel overwhelmed, you can also use the exterior camera view to find the quickest way out of any bad situation.

Don’t Forget Sprinting

This tip is for those who may have played the classic Sam games that didn’t have a sprint mechanic. Since the third game, Sam is able to switch to running so he can cover more ground and escape from being surrounded. In Siberian Mayhem, it’s particularly important to get accustomed to sprinting when dealing with Kamikazes. Their explosion is triggered when they get up-close so running away is the best method for making some space to pick them off from afar.

Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem Cheats

Yannis Vatis

Yannis is a veteran gamer with over 30 years of experience playing a wide spectrum of video games. When not writing about games, he's playing them, and if he's not playing them, then he's definitely thinking about them.
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