The Serious Sam series is known for its brutal challenge, but its achievement lists are usually not that bad. Both the Serious Sam Collection and Serious Sam 4 are a relative breeze in their completion, with the only challenging part being Serious difficulty, which isn't even required in Sam 4.
They fixed that in the high-octane action-filled instalment, Siberian Mayhem. You'll have to beat the game on Serious, find all the secrets and collectibles, and do the worst part, the Survival maps. Survival was only included in one achievement before, but in Siberian Mayhem, you'll need to play through all six of them.
10 Aurora Borealis
Out of the six Survival maps, Snowrider is the most unique. Controlling a tank the whole time, you must last until five minutes to get a medal here. It's not too bad, but the issue is getting used to the controls, especially on a pad. Playing on a mouse and keyboard is pretty easy to move the tank, but on a pad, it's very awkward and takes some time to adjust.
Once you get the movement down, the map's fairly straightforward. You must constantly move to avoid hits while firing when you can and pick up the health and speed boosts along the way. It shouldn't take a lot of tries once you've fully grasped the controls.
9 No Stone Unturned
Siberian Mayhem is the first console Sam title to require you to find all the secrets for an achievement. In a game like Doom, it's rather simple using a guide, and while you can do the same here, it's far more punishing. Serious Sam has always had a knack for spawning hordes of deadly monsters in secret areas, making it difficult to get out alive.
This is especially true in the first level. Many off-the-beaten-path secrets spawn in Major Bio-mechs that can kill you in one rocket. Be prepared for these tough fights. At least there's almost no parkour secrets like in Sam 4.
8 Veni, Vidi, Vici
This one isn't too bad if you prepare for it. If you don't, this will be one of your hardest achievements. To get this, you must beat the final boss on Serious difficulty in one go without dying or reloading a save. General Brand is pretty tough and a great final boss, but the easy way to do this is to stock up on your H.E.A.R.T.s.
These gadgets will allow you to revive on death, and they're mostly obtained through secret areas. By the end, you should have three of them if not used, giving you essentially four lives to beat the final boss. This makes the fight very doable.
7 Serious Mayhem
Serious Mayhem requires you to appropriately beat the game on Serious difficulty in single-player mode. This will be a rude awakening for those playing Serious Sam for the first time because you won't know the dos and don'ts. For veterans, however, it will be business as usual.
You can save whenever you want, and you don't need to beat the side missions if you don't want to. If you're a newcomer, use weapons that prioritize speed or rate of fire. Weapons like the Double Barrel Shotgun are actually low-tier due to their slow firing rate, and its damage doesn't make up for it. Also, use the infinite ammo Pistol for standalone enemies to save ammo.
6 Hole-In-One
Like Sam 4, there's an achievement for killing a large number of enemies with a certain gadget. In Sam 4, it was the Mini-Nuke, and in Siberian Mayhem, it's a Black Hole. Both achievements are a pain because you can only really get it in one particular area. If you try to experiment and do it in other places, you'll just waste your time.
The spot to do it is at the end of level four. First, you need to get the Black Hole by doing the Alpha and Omega side mission. Then, after your first fight in the final area, there will be a cutscene. When the cutscene ends, wait a short while for all the enemies to spawn, then throw a Black Hole. This should do the trick.
5 Iron Caput
One of the more memorable parts of the game is the tank sequence in level four. You'll face an ungodly amount of enemies here, but the Iron Caput achievement requires you to beat the section without getting in the tank. This is another one that's virtually impossible to do legitimately but simple when you have the right strategy.
The issue is that, if you try to actually kill everything, you can't because there's no ammo out in the field. To achieve this, you must simply run to the next area or, better yet, use the Hoverboard Scooter if you find one. That gadget allows you to move much quicker toward the exit while still being able to shoot via its turret.
4 Combustion Tamer
Combustion Tamer is one of the more complex achievements because there are several areas you can get it in. You must kill 30 enemies while riding on one single Draconian Burner for the achievement to pop. Finding a good place to get this is quite harder to figure out than Hole-in-One, but an easy area is in the later parts of level four.
After getting the skill point near the train tracks, there should be some Burners. Before riding on one, use a Time Warp. Then hop on and wreck house. You will need this Burner to last a while and go with you through the next few areas. Make sure to save beforehand if you don't get a good run.
3 Extreme Survivalist
Survival mode has the two hardest achievements in the entire game. Extreme Survivalist will force you to get a Gold medal on any map. The best one to do this in is Monkey Canyon, which has a Gold time of nine minutes. Once you start, turn around and head to the top left while picking up all the ammo, huddle in the bottom right corner, and crouch facing towards the items.
This will ensure the big boy enemies won't be a threat, but the smaller ones will still charge at you. Use the Minigun or Burner to kill enemies, but the annoying part is that you must, at some point, leave your safe zone to recollect ammo. You can get killed here, and with a nine-minute goal, this can be frustrating.
2 Superior Species
While Extreme Survivalist is the most frustrating achievement, Superior Species is the all-around most difficult. You simply need to get any medal on Kleer Fortress, and a Bronze time is four minutes and 30 seconds. You'll need both luck and good movement as you're equipped with one of the weaker weapons, the Double Barrel Shotgun.
It's okay for the first minute or so, but after that, you'll primarily be moving and dodging out of the way of Kleers. Later on, there are so many Kleers that you will need some amount of luck to move by them. This will take a few hours because the opposition is just brutal.
1 Massacre Party
Like Wanted: Dead and Street Fighter 6, the hardest achievement in Siberian Mayhem is the one you can't even get. That is, if you game on consoles. Massacre Party, requiring you to beat the game on Serious mode cooperatively with enemy multiplier set to times two, is obtainable on PC. It's not too bad, as long as your co-op partner is equal in skill.
Despite not having the enemy multiplier feature, console versions also have the achievement, making it unobtainable. Based on recent activity on Croteam's discord, it seems a patch is unlikely, and instead, the achievement might get deleted altogether. This is similar to Homestead Arcana, which also had an unobtainable achievement deleted.