Old-school FPS fans, here is something special for you today. Modder ‘hexenstar’ is working on a remake of Heretic in the GZDoom Engine, and has shared a demo that you can download right now.
As the modder noted, this fan remake of Heretic plays similar to Hexen 2, except with the Id-Tech1-based combat. There are puzzles to solve, secrets to find and a legion or two of enemies to dismantle while at it. The remake will have backtracking (although getting from point A to point B rarely takes over 10 seconds). Plus, it has various info bits scattered across the levels. These are not some decorative lore info bits. Instead, they contain info to solve puzzles. They also include clues or progress instructions.
The combat in the remake has also changed. Now, there’s a much bigger focus on close-up fighting (melee). You have to use melee weapons to take down melee enemies. The game also gives you less ammo on purpose, so you need to rely more on melee. Each weapon and its different shooting modes work best in certain fights or against certain enemies. Items also play a bigger role now. You’ll need to use them smartly during battles, and sometimes, using the right item can be the difference between winning and losing.
And finally, there will be more enemies to fight. Monsters from Hexen are coming back, but they’ll look and act better than before. All of the original monsters from Heretic have also been upgraded. On top of that, there will be some brand-new enemies.
The demo lets you play the first three levels from Episode 1. It offers about 2.5 to 4 hours of gameplay. To see the game the way it’s meant to look, you should turn on the “tonemap/palette” setting in the GZDoom options menu. If you don’t, the lighting effects won’t look right.
The final plan is to remake all 27 levels of Heretic, or at least the original 24. The modder said this will take a few years to finish. Because of that, the mod will come out one episode at a time. Each episode will have 8 levels, its own theme, and probably a new weapon and combat items. Right now, not all of the planned features are in the demo. These missing parts will be added as Episode 1 gets closer to being finished.
All in all, this appears to be an amazing fan remake of Heretic. So, if you are an old-school FPS fan, you should not sleep on it.
You can download the demo from this link. Below, you can also find a video for it.
Enjoy and stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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