ETTiNGRiNDER's Heretic and Hexen pages

Raven Software in the 1990s was perhaps best known for the fantasy games they created with their unique aesthetic, foremost among them being the loosely-connected series of Heretic and Hexen games which chronicled the battles of various heroes against the evil machinations of three demonic entities known as the Serpent Riders, with occasional other villains.

The series, by release chronology, included:

  • Heretic, an action oriented FPS based on the Doom engine.
  • Hexen, an FPS with adventure elements, on an improved Doom engine.
  • Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, official expansion maps for Hexen.
  • Hexen II, similar formula to Hexen, using the Quake engine.
  • Portal of Praevus, official expansion mod for Hexen II.
  • Heretic II, a third-person action game using the Quake II engine.

Common features that appear in at least three of the four games in the series include:

  • Magic-themed combat including arsenals laden with enchanted weapons, sorcerous staves, and battle spells.
  • An inventory of special artifacts that can be carried and used at will to cast spells for attack or defense.
  • The Tome of Power, which temporarily switches weapons to an alternate, powered up attack mode.
  • Spells which polymorph enemies into small farm animals.
  • Use of id Software's game engines.

The Doom Wiki is a good source for walkthroughs and creature/item data for Heretic, Hexen, and Deathkings, including some of my own contributions. For the most part I will not be duplicating this type of information here.

Other Raven games which were thematically similar, but unconnected to the Heretic-Hexen series, were Shadowcaster, Mageslayer, and their very first release, Black Crypt.