Croteam

Croteam is a Croatian video game developer based in Zagreb. Established by six friends in June 1993, the company is best known for the first-person shooter series Serious Sam as well as the 2014 puzzle game The Talos Principle.

Croteam
Private
IndustryVideo games
Founded14 June 1993 (1993-06-14)
Founders
  • Admir Elezović
  • Davor Hunski
  • Alen Ladavac
  • Roman Ribarić
  • Dean Sekulić
  • Davor Tomičić
Headquarters
Zagreb
,
Croatia
Key people
  • Roman Ribarić (CEO)
  • Davor Hunski (CCO)
  • Damjan Mravunac (CMO)
Products
Number of employees
40+[1]
DivisionsCroteam Incubator
Websitecroteam.com

History
CCO Davor Hunski (left) and CTO Alen Ladavac at the Game Developers Conference 2015

Croteam was established on 14 June 1993,[2] as a "garage games" company in Zagreb, Croatia, headed up by six friends.[3][4] The company's founders were Admir Elezović, Davor Hunski, Alen Ladavac, Roman Ribarić, Dean Sekulić, and Davor Tomičić.[5][6][7] Their first video game was Football Glory, a football game which was published by Black Legend for the Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200 platforms in 1994, and then for PC in 1995.[3][4] Sensible Software threatened legal action against Croteam, asserting that Football Glory was a clone of their video game Sensible Soccer. Croteam ceased further development on the title and released it as freeware in 1998.[4] Their second video game, titled Save the Earth, was a children's game based on a Croatian TV series and released for the Amiga 4000. One year later, Croteam finished Five-A-Side Soccer, an indoor soccer version of Football Glory for the Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200.[3][4]

A long hiatus followed, broken by the first title of the Serious Sam series, Serious Sam: The First Encounter in 2001, followed by Serious Sam: The Second Encounter in 2002.[3][4] Both Serious Sam games debuted on Microsoft Windows and utilised Croteam's in-house Serious Engine. In 2002, Serious Sam for the Xbox was released, which consisted of both games with the additional number of cinematics, an updated scores system, combos, multikills, auto-aiming and other console specific features.[3] A sequel, Serious Sam 2 for both PC and Xbox was released on 11 October 2005, using Serious Engine 2.[8][9]

In 2007, development began on Serious Sam 3: BFE, a prequel to the original game. In 2010, Croteam released high definition remakes of the original Serious Sam games with upgraded textures and models, enhanced engine, user interface and audio, and additional features. Serious Sam 3: BFE was released for Windows in November 2011, soon followed by macOS and Linux versions. The Xbox 360 version of Serious Sam 3: BFE was released on Xbox Live Arcade in September 2012, and later made its way to PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network in March 2014.[3] In December 2014, Croteam released the first-person puzzle game The Talos Principle for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.[10]

Co-founder and chief technical officer Ladavac left Croteam to join Google's Munich-based branch in October 2019 and work on the Stadia project.[11]

Serious Engine

For development of Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Croteam developed the Serious Engine (formerly named S-Cape3D), a proprietary game engine, which, while similar to other engines at the time, was designed to render large environments and support a large number of enemies visible at any time.[12] Serious Engine 2 was developed alongside Serious Sam 2, adding in support for a physics engine, refraction, detailed textures, and high dynamic range lighting.[13][14]

Serious Engine 3 was used to support the high-definition remakes of The First Encounter and The Second Encounter for release on Windows and Xbox 360, adding in true high-dynamic lighting support. As Croteam wanted to target more platforms with the release of Serious Sam 3: BFE, Serious Engine 3 was heavily reworked to support seventh-generation consoles, and became Serious Engine 3.5. With the introduction of eighth-generation consoles, Croteam continued to improve the Serious Engine, releasing it as Serious Engine 4, which premiered with The Talos Principle.[15] Serious Engine 4 is also expected to be used for the upcoming Serious Sam 4, with Croteam claiming it can support up to 100,000 enemies on screen at any time.[16]

In honour of Serious Sam: The First Encounter's 15th anniversary in 2016, Croteam released the source code for the first Serious Engine under an open-source licence.[17]

Games developed
Title Details
Football Glory

Original release date:
1994		 Release years by system:
1994 – Amiga
1995 – MS-DOS
Notes:
Save the Earth

Original release date:
1994		 Release years by system:
1995 – Amiga
Notes:
Inordinate Desire

Original release date:
1995		 Release years by system:
1995 – MS-DOS
Notes:
Five A-Side Soccer

Original release date:
1998		 Release years by system:
1995 – MS-DOS
Notes:
Serious Sam

Original release date:
  • WW: 21 March 2001[18]
(The First Encounter)
  • WW: 5 February 2002[19]
(The Second Encounter)		 Release years by system:
2001–2002 – Windows
2001 – Palm OS
2002 – Xbox
Notes:
  • First-person shooter
  • Published by Gathering of Developers
  • Two episodes titled The First Encounter and The Second Encounter
  • Palm OS version only includes The First Encounter
  • The Xbox version of the game is published by Gotham Games
  • In 2003, both The First Encounter and The Second Encounter were compiled into one single collection titled Serious Sam: Gold
  • On 24 November 2009, The First Encounter was re-released with high-definition graphics titled Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter[20]
  • On 31 March 2017, The First Encounter was re-released with virtual reality support titled Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter[21]
  • On 28 April 2010, The Second Encounter was re-released with high-definition graphics titled Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter[22]
  • On 4 April 2017, The Second Encounter was re-released with virtual reality support titled Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter[23]
  • A unified version of the original game titled Serious Sam Classics: Revolution was developed by Alligator Pit and was on early access in 2014 until its full release in 2019[24]
Serious Sam 2

Original release date:
  • WW: 11 October 2005[25]
 Release years by system:
2005 – Windows, Xbox
Notes:
  • First-person shooter
  • Published by 2K Games
  • Sequel to Serious Sam
Serious Sam 3: BFE

Original release date:
  • WW: 22 November 2011[26]
 Release years by system:
2011 – Windows
2012 – Mac OS X, Xbox 360, Linux
2014 – PlayStation 3
Notes:
  • First-person shooter
  • Published by Devolver Digital
  • Prequel to Serious Sam
  • On 10 November 2017, Serious Sam 3: BFE was re-released with virtual reality support titled Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE
The Talos Principle

Original release date:
  • WW: 11 December 2014[27]
 Release years by system:
2014 – Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
2015 – Android, PlayStation 4
2017 – iOS
2018 – Xbox One
Nintendo Switch – 2019
Notes:
  • Puzzle game
  • Published by Devolver Digital
  • On 17 October 2017, The Talos Principle was re-released with virtual reality support titled The Talos Principle VR
Serious Sam 4

Proposed release date:
  • WW: August 2020
 Proposed system release:
2020 – Windows, Stadia
Notes:
The Talos Principle 2

Proposed release date:
TBA[28]		 Proposed system release:
TBA
Notes:
  • Puzzle game

References
  1. Gach, Ethan (19 June 2018). "Serious Sam 4 Is Aiming For 100,000 Enemies On Screen At Once But It's Not There Yet". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 24 June 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  2. "Woah! We're 25 Years Old". Croteam. 14 June 2018. Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  3. "About Croteam". Croteam. Archived from the original on 6 February 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  4. Varney, Allen (25 October 2005). "Serious Cro". The Escapist. Archived from the original on 7 September 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  5. Mihaljević, Jerko (1 March 2017). "Bili su klinci iz Utrina koji maštaju da će živjeti od videoigara, 2001. su imali prvi hit, a dosad su prodali milijune" [They were kids from Utrin who dreamed of making a living from video games, they had their first hit in 2001, and have sold millions so far]. Telegram.hr (in Croatian). Archived from the original on 26 September 2018. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  6. Nikolić, Filip (18 May 2016). "Intervju: Davor Tomičić suosnivač Croteama" [Interview: Davor Tomičić co-founder of Croteam]. IGN Adria (in Croatian). Archived from the original on 25 September 2018. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  7. McAloon, Alissa (4 October 2019). "Croteam co-founder Alen Ladavac departs studio to join Google's Stadia team". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 6 October 2019. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  8. Calvert, Justin (23 September 2003). "Serious Sam 2 development update". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 22 September 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  9. Sinclair, Brendan (27 September 2005). "Serious Sam sequel locked and loaded". GameStop. Archived from the original on 21 September 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  10. Matulef, Jeffrey (4 November 2014). "The Talos Principle gets a December release date on Steam". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 27 December 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  11. Taylor, Haydn (4 October 2019). "Croteam co-founder leaves for Google Stadia". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 4 October 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  12. Mosettig, Nikola; Manansala, Lee (27 December 2018). "War Stories: Serious Sam almost didn't happen—until crates saved the day". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  13. 1UP Staff (11 October 2005). "Serious Sam II Review for PC". 1Up.com. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011.
  14. Bramwell, Tom (1 August 2003). "Croteam working on Serious Sam 2". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  15. Peel, Jeremy (10 June 2014). "Serious-face Sam: Croteam are making a first-person puzzle game called The Talos Principle". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  16. Martin, Matt (20 June 2018). "Serious Sam 4 has 100,000 enemies on screen, a 128km map, and 16-player co-op". VG247. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  17. Matulef, Jeffrey (17 March 2016). "Serious Sam's engine is now available to all". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  18. "Serious Sam: The First Encounter". GameSpot. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  19. "15th anniversary of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter". Croteam. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  20. "Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter". Steam. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  21. "Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter". Steam. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  22. "Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter". Steam. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  23. "Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter". Steam. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  24. "Serious Sam Classics: Revolution". Steam. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  25. "Serious Sam 2". Croteam. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  26. "Serious Sam 3: BFE". Croteam. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  27. "The Talos Principle". Croteam. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  28. O'Connor, Alice (20 May 2016). "The Talos Principle 2 Discreetly Announced". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on 21 May 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
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