Serious Sam 3: BFE is a first-person shooter, action video game developed by Croatia-based indie development studio Croteam and published by Devolver Digital. It is part of the Serious Sam series and the prequel to The First Encounter, where “BFE” stands for “Before First Encounter”. The game takes place in 22nd century Egypt, during Mental’s invasion on Earth, as implied in The First Encounter. Like previous titles in the series, Serious Sam 3: BFE involves fighting against many hordes of enemies in wide-open environments. However Serious Sam 3 has more closed environments than its predecessors, particularly in the early levels. There are also a larger number of enemies that can attack the player from a distance. The player can carry an unlimited amount of weapons, including a mini-gun, rocket launcher, assault rifle and a cannon. There are 13 weapons total, 5 of them have a manual reload. The signature close-combat weapons from the first game, the knife and chainsaw, have been replaced with a sledgehammer with three modes of attack (vertical strike, 180 turn and full 360 turn).