Heretic + Hexen Review Summary

Nightdive's excellent remaster bundle and Hulshult's soundtrack make Heretic and Hexen enjoyable, though Hexen's confusing hubs and tedious backtracking frustrate.

High-Quality Remaster: The remaster is widely praised for its quality and faithfulness to the originals. Many reviewers consider it a definitive example of how to remaster classic games properly.

Excellent Remastered Soundtrack: The remastered soundtrack, including new compositions by Andrew Hulshult, is highly acclaimed. It is often described as amazing, spectacular, and a standout feature.

Heretic Is Fun: Heretic is frequently described as a fun and addictive old-school shooter. Many enjoy its straightforward gameplay and dark fantasy setting.

Hexen Is Enjoyable: Hexen is praised for its fun gameplay and rewarding exploration. Despite some complexity, many find it a blast to play.

Heretic as Fantasy Doom: Heretic is often compared to Doom but with a medieval fantasy theme. Many consider it a superior or at least equally enjoyable variant.

Hexen has brutal and confusing level design: Many players find Hexen's levels and puzzles extremely difficult, cryptic, and frustrating to navigate. The complex layouts and lack of clear direction make progression a struggle for many.

Hexen's backtracking and switch hunting is tedious: Players frequently complain about excessive backtracking and searching for switches, which makes the game feel like a chore. This leads to frustration and a sense of wasting time.

Hexen is overly difficult and obtuse: Many find Hexen to be a confusing and overcomplicated mess, with difficulty spikes that feel unfair. It often requires a guide to complete due to lack of direction.

Heretic is inferior to Doom: Reviewers consider Heretic a run-of-the-mill Doom clone with monotonous visuals, worse level design, and inferior gameplay. It hasn't aged as well as Doom II.

Hexen's hub system is confusing: The hub structure with multiple interconnected levels and teleports is often cited as labyrinthine and hard to navigate. Even with objective markers, players get lost and waste time.

Hub-based level progression system: Hexen uses a hub system where interconnected maps are accessed from a central area, and actions in one map can affect others. This non-linear structure encourages exploration and backtracking.

Hexen offers three distinct classes: The game includes three character classes—Warrior, Cleric, and Mage—each with unique weapons and abilities. This class system provides replayability and varied playstyles.

Bundle includes Heretic and expansions: The collection bundles Heretic and Hexen together, often with additional expansions and new episodes. This provides a comprehensive package for fans of the series.

Co-op and multiplayer modes supported: The game supports cooperative play with friends, as well as deathmatch and PvP modes. Multiplayer can be played both locally and online, enhancing the experience.

Platforming and puzzles in Hexen: Hexen includes platforming sections, jumping, and puzzles that require finding switches and key items. These elements add an adventure-like layer to the first-person shooter gameplay.

High refresh rate support: The remaster supports 120 FPS and runs at 120 frames per second, providing smooth high-refresh gameplay. It also supports higher frame rates and resolutions.

Stable performance across systems: Performance is very stable and runs fluidly on most setups, including low-end systems and handheld devices. It also runs great on current computers.

Occasional frame drops: There are occasional frame drops and noticeable FPS drops despite it being a 1994 game. Some frame drops can be mitigated by disabling Vsync.

General bugs and instability: The engine has plenty of bugs, and there are some instability problems and bugs present. This can lead to a less polished experience.

No community patches needed: The remaster does not require fan or community patches to work properly with modern hardware. The original package had eventual problems, but this remaster is more modern and runs without issues.

Ideal for retro FPS fans: Cluster 1 consistently recommends the collection for fans of classic first-person shooters, boomer shooters, and 90s-era FPS titles. It emphasizes that the appeal is strongest for players with nostalgia or a specific taste for old-school design.

Appeals to Doom fans: Multiple clusters note that players who enjoy DOOM and DOOM II will feel at home with this package. Cluster 2 explicitly calls out Doom lovers as the core audience, and Cluster 16 echoes this for Doom 2 veterans.

Strong Heretic and Hexen appeal: Clusters 4 and 6 highlight that fans of the original Heretic or Hexen should buy this without hesitation. The feedback frames it as a must-play for those who love these classic dark fantasy shooters.

Co-op support highly valued: Clusters 7, 12, and 13 recommend the game for co-op play, whether online or local. However, Cluster 7 warns players to verify that co-op issues are fixed before purchasing.

Great Hexen accessibility improvements: Cluster 5 praises the remaster for making Hexen easier to approach, removing the need to tinker with source ports or mods. It is recommended for both newcomers and returning players who want a smoother experience.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $15.00.

Game completion: 35.0h.

Endgame: 10.0h.

Heretic and the remastered presentation often land immediately, but Hexen's vague progression, cryptic level design, and multiplayer save limitations create early friction until QoL improvements and co-op play make it significantly more fun.

Friction: Vague and cryptic Hexen progression; Missing multiplayer or co-op save function; Broken or iffy co-op without save and all-weapon starts; Confusing level design and backtracking; Tedious platforming sections when playing blind; Repetitive combat and bullet-sponge enemies.

Unlock drivers: Hexen map markers and clearer hub/map progression guidance; Mid-game class switching and access to more weapons; Cleric's new shield; Co-op play with friends and complementary classes; Modern QoL features such as widescreen, 4K, higher frame rates, and customizable controls; Heretic's rebalanced gameplay, visuals, and map progression.

Nostalgic DOS-Era Veteran: Solo classic playthroughs of the base games and expansions, revisiting familiar content at their own pace. Motivation: Reliving childhood memories of the original DOS games and supporting their faithful preservation. Stance: buy.

Co-op and Deathmatch Enthusiast: Online and local co-op or deathmatch sessions, often forced into single long runs because multiplayer progress cannot be saved. Motivation: Playing co-op and deathmatch with friends online or locally rather than playing alone. Stance: sale.

Boomer Shooter Genre Fan: Solo challenging runs with secret hunting, sometimes disabling the crosshair to increase difficulty. Motivation: The appeal of classic old-school FPS combat and the ongoing boomer shooter revival. Stance: buy.

Across the Steam Deck / handheld and Windows 12-15GB VRAM cohorts, the game is reported to run well, with all included snippets recommending it and no performance problems noted.

Steam Deck / handheld: positive. The included reports say the game runs very well on Steam Deck, with both snippets recommending it and no performance issues mentioned.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: positive. The included report for this cohort says the game runs great and recommends it.

Steam Deck: The reviewed Heretic/Hexen remaster is widely described as a strong native port for Steam Deck. Users report it runs smoothly out of the box, includes controller support and input options, offers clearer text, higher resolutions, ultrawide support, and improved performance, and supports stable cross-platform co-op. No meaningful evidence appears for external launchers, anti-cheat errors, battery drain, small-text barriers, or crashes.

Linux and Proton: The available Linux-related evidence is positive. One user explicitly states that a Linux player was able to join co-op with Windows players quickly and without problems. No Linux, Proton, SteamOS, Wine, anti-cheat, DRM, launcher, or performance blockers are reported.

External guides: Feedback centers on Hexen's remastered level design and navigation, where confusing hub layouts still push players to open external walkthroughs, wikis, and videos to figure out where to go. A recurring secondary theme is outdated or mismatched guides and occasional glitches that require online confirmation. No reviews reference farming, drop rates, loot tables, inventory management, crafting, or blueprints. The dominant barrier is spatial navigation and bug/guide friction, which classifies the dataset under the Tourist (spatial data) tier.

Nightdive remaster of Heretic and Hexen: A definitive remastered collection of Heretic and Hexen published by Nightdive Studios. The package includes the original games, expansions, and new episodes with polished enhancements.

Frequent comparisons to Doom: Reviewers often compare Heretic and Hexen to the Doom series. Some prefer it as a successor to Doom's style, while others note it hasn't aged as well.

Free upgrade for original owners: Owners of the original Heretic and Hexen games received this remaster as a free upgrade. This applies to both Steam and DOS versions.

Remastered soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult: The remaster includes a remixed and remade soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult. The music features more epic versions of the original MIDI tracks.

Multiplayer and co-op support: The package includes multiplayer and cooperative play options. It supports up to 16 players co-op and 8 player splitscreen, with crossplay available.