Retro fans rejoice! Raven Software’s legendary (or at the very least, fondly remembered) fantasy FPS twosome Heretic and Hexen have risen from the grave and received the remaster treatment on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC, courtesy of retro specialists Nightdive.
Heretic, for those too young to remember, originally released in 1994 while its sequel, Hexen: Beyond Heretic, released one year later, with Raven Software – these days best known for its work on Call of Duty – creating both using a modified version of the Doom Engine. But while the titles had much in common with id Software’s seminal shooter, they managed to bring something new to the still-fledgling genre with their medieval fantasy setting; beefy guns and demonic hordes making way for swords, spell-casting, character classes, and the likes of monstrous spiders, golems, gargoyles, and the undead.
Both games have garnered plenty of fans over the years, and have gone on to inspire the likes of developer Indefatigable’s superb 2018 retro-shooter throwback Amid Evil, but the originals are now set to enjoy a new lease of life thanks to Nightdive Studios.
Nightdive – the team responsible for many an acclaimed remaster, including the recent upgrades for System Shock 2 and Star Wars: Dark Forces – announced its new Heretic + Hexen release ahead of this year’s QuakeCon. Both games have now been finessed for modern machines and rereleased, alongside a whole bunch of extras, in one reasonably priced bundle.