Wake up, it’s the 90s again. Ok, so maybe I’ve lied to you there, but two classic shooters from the decade that I as a child of 1999 definitely remember fondly have been re-released as one handy bundle with some extra features. Heretic + Hexen is out now.
The surprise re-release of these virtual spell boxes came as part of QuakeCon, with Nightdive Studios and id Software collborating to revamp more old school shooty things after doing the same with Doom and Doom 2 last year.
Announced by id’s Marty Stratton and Hugo Martin during last night’s QuakeCon welcome stream, the Heretic + Hexen bundle gives you Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, Hexen: Beyond Heretic, and Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel. Plus, there are two new chapters developed specially for the re-release: Heretic: Faith Renewed and Hexen: Vestiges of Grandier.
If you’ve already got the old versions of one or more of the games in your library, you’ll be offered a free upgrade to the new bundle and retain access to those previous versions, rather than the new thing annoyingly overwriting them.
“There were level designers (including myself) that wanted to work on something new for Heretic and Hexen,” developer Matthew Tropiano said of how the new sections came to be in an Xbox Wire interview, “Kaiser (Sam Villareal) took point on the Heretic episode, while I handled the Hexen episode. We both enlisted the help of community member Not Jabba, as well as Heretic + Hexen lead Xaser Acheron for map design, and artist Arthur Biver for additional graphic work.” He and Jaemen Moore added the games’ original devs have been part of “inspiring some of the areas”, with the Heretic chapter specifically drawing on “unused artwork” for some textures and two enemies, the draugr and troll.
Alongside those chapters, the new additions also include the likes of in-game support for community mods, local, online multiplayer support for up to 16 players with crossplay, and a remixed soundtrack by composer Andrew Hulshult. There are also performance tweaks that’ll deliver up to 4K resolution and 120 FPS if you’re packing the right hardware, and a vault where you can check out the likes of classic concept art.
Heretic + Hexen will set us PC folks back £13.49/$14.99, via Steam or GOG.com, and it’s also on Xbox Game Pass. If you’ve not played the original Hexen, here’s our former deputy editor Adam with some words on it. If you’ve not played Heretic then I dunno, maybe imagine it’s 1994 and you’re enjoying a dark fantasy sibling of Doom. It features a magic egg that can turn enemies into chickens. Life’s good. Or at least I assume it was.
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