Nightdive Studios wants Microsoft to let them do remasters of Heretic and Hexen

6 hours ago, Rudolph said:

A SIGIL-style Heretic 1 campaign would be cool too.

A fully completed episode 6 by the OGs: Michael Raymond-Judy, Eric C. Biessman and Tim Moore.

5 hours ago, Jayextee said:

I want Heretic on console. Always have. Please let this be a thing.

Me too but I won't get my hopes up for a PS version this time.

4 hours ago, Dimon12321 said:

And what will it be? Doom Unity, but it's Heretic/Hexen Unity?

I think they've moved on to KEX.

3 hours ago, Gothic said:

Betting for Curse of D'sparil to be added if they go the Doom Unity way.

KYOPI1B.WAD

1 hour ago, Nikku4211 said:

As long as they let you look up and down with the mouse instead of requiring you to awkwardly use the keyboard for that.

They added freelook to ROTT:LE so that's likely.

If this remaster gets approved, I would like them to dig up some early builds as well, if there is anything left.

The Playstation version of Hexen have a cool FMV intro iirc. It would be great to see it on a possible remaster!

6 hours ago, Jayextee said:

I can think of better things to dream of than cut-down maps containing a limited number of enemy types with an ill-fitting soundtrack.

'what if I could pay for the same game again but without mouse support or modding'?

1 hour ago, Noiser said:

The Playstation version of Hexen have a cool FMV intro iirc. It would be great to see it on a possible remaster!

And the N64 version was translated to many languages like Portuguese, let no console exclusive content behind!

1 hour ago, ASD said:

A fully completed episode 6

There is a sixth episode?!? :o

How come I never heard about it?

4 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

I'd rather see Heretic 2 as well. I can play the originals and Hexen 2 with existing source ports, but getting Heretic 2 to work again is a completely different story...

 

GPLv2-ing Heretic 2's source code would also be great for obvious reasons...

It'd be super cool to actually be able to buy/play Hexen II: Portal of Praevus on Steam

11 hours ago, Rudolph said:

A SIGIL-style Heretic 1 campaign would be cool too.

Fuck me, I would love that oh my god...

waggle 2023

bout damn time.

8 hours ago, Rudolph said:

There is a sixth episode?!? :o

 

How come I never heard about it?

Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders comes with an Episode 6 included in the E6M1-E6M3 map slots. E6M3 used to be E4M1 in the original Registered release of Heretic.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Heretic#Heretic_levels
https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Fate's_Path

If you are playing in DOS, you can access the extra episode with the following parameters:
HERETIC.EXE -WARP 4 1 -SKILL 4
HERETIC.EXE -WARP 6 1 -SKILL 5

The first is for the original release to access the hidden E4M1 on Skill 4, the second is for the SOTSR release to access the hidden E6 on Skill 5. You can also use the ENGAGE61 cheat code or MAP E6M1 in ZDoom ports to access the hidden episode. Just note that while E6M1 and E6M2 can be finished, E6M3 has no exit, although it contains a couple monsters, so it's still worth checking out in single player mode.

There is also an unused Maze map in the original version of Hexen and a deathmatch hub in Deathkings if you wanted to check out some more extra levels after beating the main levels, though I'm getting a bit off-topic right now.

On topic: I would like to see Heretic and Hexen remastered by Nightdive Studios. I enjoyed the Quake 1 and 2 remasters very much and they've done plenty of other great remasters, so I'd like to see their take on Heretic and Hexen, as they are some of my favorite childhood games that I highly enjoyed back then (even more than Doom in some cases), despite some people's mixed feelings on them.

I already have a wishlist on what they can fix for Heretic and Hexen, though I will share it at a later time, as now it's a bit too early to talk about that. Heretic should absolutely have a finished Episode 6 (with E6M3 being the secret level and moved into E6M9 slot) and I can already predict that Hexen will have Shadows of Chronos added as an official episode, seeing as it was made by Kaiser himself. I also propose that the Hexen 2 remaster should be called Hexen 2: Eidolon Edition!

However, the biggest thing I would really like to see is merging Heretic and Hexen into one game, so that features can be shared between the games. This should allow for some very cool mods to be made and I don't think it's out of place to suggest something like this, considering that both games have some shared elements between them (health items, torch, wings, chaos serpent, etc) and most of the Heretic/Hexen mods for ZDoom/GZDoom already borrow some stuff from the other game.

This should also allow using the Tome of Power in the first Hexen game. I mean we all wondered why the first Hexen lacked the Tome of Power and while there are some mods that have implemented powered versions of Hexen weapons (such as in the Carnage Galore mod), I would like to see this happening officially. The idea with merging both games into one is inspired by this project (which actually merges the entire series into one): https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=72799

Even if some of these things will not happen, I would still be thankful with having new official ports to replay Heretic and Hexen, instead of using DOSBox or source ports or the crappy Hexen95 port that no one uses or even heard of (it is basically the Doom95 equivalent for Hexen).

EDIT: I forgot to add that I'd also like to see Hexen 2: Portal of Praevus and Heretic 2 released digitally, even though I already own them in physical format, it would be nice to have them available for everyone instead of having to look up expensive copies on eBay.

16 hours ago, Dimon12321 said:

And what will it be? Doom Unity, but it's Heretic/Hexen Unity?

Definitely not Unity. More like Doom 64 or Quake/Quake II remasters, using the KEX engine.

Yeah, it'd be neat to have another episode for Heretic. But let's not forget, Shadows of Cronos proved Kaiser is also quite capable when it comes to Hexen mapping. So if we got another mapset like that, or even just the original getting the "official addon" treatment, that'd also be cool.

And on the less official side of things, maybe excitement surrounding a Hexen remaster could give the Deathkings Midi Pack the push it needs to get completed.

9 hours ago, Captain red pants said:

 

'what if I could pay for the same game again but without mouse support or modding'?

Yeah but console. I can play it relaxed on my couch, not hunched over the fucking typewriter.

1 minute ago, Jayextee said:

Yeah but console. I can play it relaxed on my couch, not hunched over the fucking typewriter.

You don't need a console for that. 

I'm not getting into this. I don't want to have to rearrange my setup or trail a bunch of wires to where the TV is just so I can play PC games whilst sat on my couch, it's awkward. Heretic on console. I want Heretic on console. Why do you have objections to someone else wanting what they want?

9 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Why do you have objections to someone else wanting what they want?

Apply these standards to my harmless wish casting about hypothetical heretic port please. I just quoted you because you brought up Heretic and I did some word association.

Okay, but "port this to console so I can play on my couch" is a more-realistic ask than "make a hypothetical PS1 version of the game, drafting in a musician that has had nothing to do with this series" perhaps.

13 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

I'd rather see Heretic 2 as well. I can play the originals and Hexen 2 with existing source ports, but getting Heretic 2 to work again is a completely different story...

 

The fan-made patch, 1.07, does work on modern systems, albeit it's not the ideal way to play the game. Since there's no source code, I think it was created by hacking the exe that we already have.

Nonetheless, being able to actually buy not just Heretic ][, but also Portals of Praevus, would be nice.

Actually, why stop at the Heretic + Hexen franchise? Go crazy and do something with Raven's back catalog, from Shadowcaster to Cyclones and Soldier of Fortune and beyond! Port that Amiga game that features Heretic/Hexen lookalike characters despite being released years prior as well!

Give us Hecatomb, cowards.

19 hours ago, Jayextee said:

19 hours ago, Jayextee said:

SIGIL-style Heretic episode

 

Like this. This would be cool.

Tfw they go back and touch up the maps and actually finish the elusive episode 6.

I don't remember where I read this but apparently Raven wanted to do not six, not seven, eight, eight episodes of Heretic. Personally I would've been fine with more Corvus's adventures in strange new worlds, but if they add new content in a remaster they really need to add like an extra weapon and at least a couple of new enemies and a unique boss. New textures are a given, maybe even a community contributed soundtrack like what was done for SIGIL.

And yeah I really hope they bring Heretic II back along with Hexen II's mission pack, the only way I've got to play them was though illegitimate means and the sorry state of game preservation, especially with PC titles is inexcusable in current year, we've gotten a lot of surprise Raven re-releases on GOG but not these two.

13 hours ago, Gothic said:

There's nothing unique about the console ports. The only thing worth noting is the N64 version having a cool level transition.

PS1 has fancy CG cutscenes which feels like they should've always been given Hexen had a bigger budget and was actually ported to several systems unlike Heretic, but other than that yeah it's just chopped up in spots, PS1 Hexen cuts the green chaos serpent and replaces it with centaurs so you only get to see the brown variant.

Sorry for double posting, mobile options are incredibly limited.

We should summon @LexiMax and get her opinion

I wonder if some of the Heretic/Hexen cut content remains somewhere on an archive in Raven Software's network.

For example you can see from this screenshot pieces and the assembled silhouette of what used to be the cleric's superweapon before the Wraithverge. Some sort of golden trident with a triangle that was called the Justifier.

Also there was an artifact that looked like a bag. It might have been a previous version of the flechette flasks, as their codename is "poisonbag".

Nightdive remasters of these games is exactly what I wanted from the acquisition. Here's to hoping they happen. Heretic in particular could do well to be introduced to a whole new audience. Since it was only ever relegated to computers, a lot of console players missed out on it.

If it leads in the slightest possible way to Heretic II being made available again, then I'm all for it.

33 minutes ago, Gez said:

For example you can see from this screenshot pieces and the assembled silhouette of what used to be the cleric's superweapon before the Wraithverge. Some sort of golden trident with a triangle that was called the Justifier.

Interestingly, it looks similar to that symbol that's associated with Traductus' Tomb in the layout/wall decorations so there seems to have been some sort of unified iconography going on there.  In fact, given that Zedek's Tomb features a sword pattern in the layout, maybe the Mage originally had something that looked like the Menelkir's Tomb layout, too?

On 10/20/2023 at 9:12 AM, Lila Feuer said:

 

PS1 has fancy CG cutscenes which feels like they should've always been given Hexen had a bigger budget and was actually ported to several systems unlike Heretic, but other than that yeah it's just chopped up in spots.

Oh right, I forgot about the cutscenes. Level wise though, there's nothing worth porting unless you're very interested in less detailed versions of the PC maps. At least Jaguar/PS1 Doom had a couple of new levels.

If they do incorporate the FMVs, they may want to redub them so the narrator calls the setting Cronos rather than "Hexen".

On 10/20/2023 at 2:06 AM, Rudolph said:

There is a sixth episode?!? :o

 

How come I never heard about it?

 check this:

https://www.moddb.com/games/heretic/addons/heretic-fates-path-pwad-extension