Heretic and Hexen Remastered
I’ve been playing Nightdive’s recent shadow drop lately. An incredible studio, done a legendary job so far boosting video game preservation. I’ve loved most anything from them, from Blood: Fresh Supply to the System Shock remake. And now they’re here with a spectacular remaster of Heretic and Hexen. Or, as they christened it, Heretic + Hexen.
Oh, and, as I already own the games, the remaster got auto added to my library, completely free of charge. That was definitely a pleasant surprise.
What’s the Same
Now, Nightdive’s pulled off a brilliant remaster again, but these are still the same Heretic and Hexen. They tend to be more divisive among FPS lovers compared to the easy sells like Doom or, indeed, Blood. Personally, the remaster reminded me why I never got around to finishing either of them, despite starting several times over every few years.
It was still nice to reinforce how much more engaging the 90s approach to designing shooters was compared to the narrative-heavy designs we often see these days. Going back to a time when “playing” a game was not synonymous with “watching” a game. There’s something that captures me from the get-go about a shooter that lets you hit the ground running without worrying about which corner might trigger the next cutscene once you turn around it.
On the other hand, the two dark fantasy Doom clones we have here are actually rather repetitive experiences. Hexen is supposed to be the more fleshed-out one, but even it has an unfortunate enemy variety. Range of weapons is technically broad, but since you only get to use a few of them per class, your arsenal feels sorely lacking. Although you have the consumables to spice things up, it never feels enough.
What’s Better
Luckily, Nightdive took note and added the option to switch classes mid-level. I’d say sticking with a single class is probably the most boring way to play through this remaster. Definitely try mixing up unless you’re strict about having the vanilla experience.
Speaking of vanilla experience, there are various optional tweaks added that significantly alter the gameplay. Whether you like them or not is more down to your preferences but nice to have the option.
Nightdive also added two entire new episodes, one for each of the games, with fresh assets and everything.
What’s Missing
The one thing I disliked that Nightdive could’ve improved was that your saves in one game appear in another’s load screen. Having the option to choose any of the base games or expansions from the main menu and the ability to switch from one game to another is super convenient but it would’ve been nice to isolate the save/load screens of each game.
Conclusion
We’re lucky to have Nightdive doing what they’re doing. Hoping for more Raven Software remasters and remakes. The Soldier of Fortune games, for example, have been criminally overlooked for so long. One can hope!
