The Mageslayer Shrine

An underdog title from Raven Software, taking a different tack from the first-person Hexen II that they were working on at approximately the same time, but with a similar fantasy theme to the Heretic and Hexen series. Mageslayer is a top-down action fest, offering a nod to the old great Gauntlet which offered so much influence to later games. However, Raven threw a bunch of their own twists into the mix, too. As the dwarvish Earthlord, fire-breathing Archdemon, chaotic Warlock or holy Inquisitor, the player must traverse five distinct worlds on their quest to defeat the evil Lore Thane.

The game also included multiplayer modes in the form of cooperative play, deathmatch "slayfest" and a "capture the relic" mode. (Of course, good luck finding any multiplayer games these days...)

The "Vampire" engine powering Mageslayer, though an in-house work of Raven Software, is Quake-like in many regards. It includes a command console which is quite similar in function and command structure to Quake, as well as some similarities in file formats. This engine was also used by Take No Prisoners (I've seen claims that it was used for Necrodome as well, but I doubt this barring further evidence. The file structures seem to be different there.)

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