Fans of gore-tastic, boomer shooters from the 1990s, I bring good news — Bethesda Softworks recently shadow-dropped Heretic+Hexen onto Xbox platforms, Xbox Game Pass, and PC via Windows and Steam during QuakeCon 2025.
Heretic+Hexen is a two-pack compilation featuring remastered editions of Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders and Hexen: Beyond Heretic, a pair of classic first-person shooters developed between 1994 and 1995 by Raven Software.
That's right. Many years before Raven Software started development on Call of Duty titles, it was making high-octane shooters similar to the classic DOOM games.
In fact, Heretic and Hexen were even created using a modified version of the original DOOM game's engine.
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Heretic+Hexen has the player embark on dark, epic adventures to save the world from the evil Serpent Riders and demolish their armies of darkness with a vast array of weapons and magic spells.
Heretic and Hexen played similarly to well-known FPS games of the time like Duke Nukem, DOOM, and Wolfenstein 3D.
However, these games feature a ton of revolutionary mechanics and gameplay ideas that helped reshape the genre into what it is today, such as inventory systems, vertical aiming, and character class systems.
What also distinguished these games from the competition during the 1990s was their emphasis on using magic and medieval weaponry. You can learn all kinds of spells to reduce enemies to ashes or pick a sword and shield to cave demon skulls and block incoming attacks.
Now, old and new fans of FPS games will get to experience these innovative titles, but with several gameplay and presentation enhancements to make them even more fun to play than before.
The contents of Heretic+Hexen (as stated on the Steam page) include:
- Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
- Hexen: Beyond Heretic
- Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
- Two all-new episodes created in collaboration between individuals at id Software + Nightdive Studios:
- Heretic: Faith Renewed
- Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur
- There are a total of 117 campaign maps and 120 deathmatch maps in Heretic + Hexen.
In addition to the original games, there will be new campaign episodes for each game developed by id Software and Nightdive Studios.
Also, the original DOS versions of Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, Hexen: Beyond Heretic and Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel will be included in the Steam version.
The remastered enhancements for Heretic+Hexen include:
- Online cross-platform deathmatch and co-op for up to 16 players.
- Local split-screen deathmatch and co-op for up to 8 players.
- Toggleable, enhanced Tome of Power soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult (the co-composer for DOOM: Eternal's DLC expansion soundtracks and the updated DOOM + DOOM II releases).
- Community-published mod support with an in-game mod browser.
- Improved performance with multithreaded rendering supporting up to 4K resolution and 120 FPS.
- A Vault section containing concept art and unused sprites from the development of the original games.
- Accessibility options, such as updated UI, improved legibility, contrast and screen. FX adjustments, and text-to-speech features.
- Modern controller support.
- Weapon carousel for faster weapon switching.
- Game balance toggle (original/enhanced).
- Quick Save/Load support.
- Widescreen support.
- Many engine fixes for bugs present in original versions.
- Translated into 12 new languages: French, Italian, German, Spanish, LATAM Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese.
It's time for some medieval, boomer shooter action.
I admit I never played Heretic or Hexen when these games first came out, as I was too young at the time and was obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog, Gunstar Heroes, Streets of Rage, and other SEGA Genesis titles.
However, in my adult years, I do enjoy myself some good old-fashioned, ultra-violent boomer shooters like DOOM (2016) and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and over-the-top co-op shooters like Borderlands and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
So I'm looking forward to giving Heretic+Hexen a go to experience what I missed out on, and see if it still holds up to the best boomer shooters on Xbox and PC.
Heretic+Hexen is available for purchase on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Windows and Steam. The game supports Xbox Play Anywhere, so you can continue the progression of your save file on these aforementioned platforms.
The game is also a part of Xbox Game Pass's vast library of titles available to download freely for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.
If you're not a subscriber, there's a special deal happening right now at CDKeys which will net you one month's worth of subscription time for $12.04 instead of the normal retail price of $19.99.
This will allow you to enjoy all the advanced premium services of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, like access to download hundreds of games for free, gameplay Perks, online multiplayer, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and more at a generously reduced cost.
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