Report: Serious Sam dev's new game blends Portal and The Witness

Croteam, the Croatian developer behind the Serious Sam series, is working on an unannounced project that CEO Roman Ribaric described as a cross between Portal and The Witness, the Serious Sam-focused site Seriously reports.

In an interview with Seriously, Ribaric described the project using Valve's first-person puzzle game and Jonathan Blow's upcoming first-person adventure game as points of reference.

A recent episode of Guy Crocker's Video Games Podcast may also contain some clues to studio's the next project.

"Croteam is working on their first new franchise since the original Serious Sam in 2001," narrative designer Tom Jubert said on the podcast. The unnamed game, which he said he's working on, should be out at "some point later this year" and will include a brand of humor that is "very different to Sam." Jubert's credits include Driver: San Francisco, FTL: Faster Than Light and The Swapper.

Croteam released the first Serious Sam game in 2001, and several more followed. Croteam teamed up with Devolver Digital to release The Serious Sam Collection last year, which includes Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, Serious Sam 3: BFE and Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile DLC as well as Serious Sam Double D XXL on Xbox 360. Many Serious Sam games are also available on Steam.

We've reached out to Croteam for more on its next project and will update this article when more information becomes available.