Heretic & Hexen series - Patches and Tools

Here you can find downloadable patches and utility programs to use with the Heretic and Hexen games.

Patches

Deathkings of the Dark Citadel official patch
This is an official patch to fix the Deathkings of the Dark Citadel expansion pack for Hexen. It enables the MUS soundtrack to play if you're not using CD audio.

Hexen II v1.11 official patch
This is an official patch to upgrade Hexen II. If you have Portal of Praevus, the PoP CD includes this patch for you so that you don't need to download it.

Portal of Praevus v1.12a official patch
This is an official patch to upgrade Portal of Praevus with some bug fixes.

Heretic II v1.06 official patch
Official upgrade pack for Heretic II, including some new game modes and features. Required by many custom map sets.

Heretic II "v1.07" unofficial patches
Additional fan-created patches for Heretic II. Use at your own risk.

FunDuke's Heretic downgrade patch
This patch will turn your Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders (v1.3) back into Heretic v1.0. Why? One reason would be to use mods that rely on an HHE patch expecting an older version. Or, perhaps you just pine for the old Gerald Brom title picture.

Unofficial Heretic patch by vv, v4.0
This is an unofficial patch to the Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders v1.3 DOS engine. It is primarily geared towards better demo recording, but also offers some other nice tweaks such as a built-in replacement for the popular NOVERT TSR and the ability to properly remap your Use Artifacts key. Use with caution; you may find Chocolate Heretic to be a better solution depending on your needs.

Heretic Plus v1.31.1 and Hexen Plus v1.1.5
EXEs for Heretic and Hexen, patched by Andrey Budko. These are not ports, but patches of the original vanilla EXE files, with raised (not removed!) vanilla limits such as visplanes, etc. allowing more demanding levels to be played as well as having improved demo recording, while otherwise maintaining the quirks and functionality of the DOS EXEs. It has been made possible to rebind artifact hotkeys as well.

Tools

ACC compiler for DOS
The original DOS version of the Hexen script compiler, along with the include files. Potentially useful (particularly for the includes) if you're making a vanilla project, otherwise you probably want to use an updated version.

Mod

Heretic & Hexen vanilla visuals mod for ZDoom/Zandronum
This is a small mod that "fixes" most changed translucency effects and decals in ZDoom ports back to a more vanilla-like appearance. One PK3 works for both Heretic and Hexen.
Note: This mod is obsolete in current versions of GZDoom, which contain internal settings that can correct both issues: in display options, set translucency to "vanilla (forced)" and number of decals to 0. I'm keeping the download available for posterity and use with older versions of the ports if they happen to be needed.