Every N64 FPS #2: Hexen: Beyond Heretic
[Every N64 FPS] My first time playing Hexen.
It’s only episode 2 and already the chronology is getting muddled because I cannot for the life of me get a straight answer online in regards to when Hexen: Beyond Heretic’s Nintendo 64 version came out other than the year 1997, since I recently got the game it wound up being this month’s episode. If you do remember when this game came out on N64, particularly if you are a PAL region gamer then I’d love to hear from you.
I also got Shadows of the Empire mixed up with Dark Forces, what a scrub.
Year Of Release: 1995, 1996 & 1997
Platforms: PC (MS-DOS 1995, Win. 1997) Mac (1996) PlayStation, Saturn and Nintendo 64 (1997)
Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: Id Software (PC) GT Interactive Software (USA and EU) GameBank (JP)
Copies Sold: Unknown, more than 250.000
Remastered: August 2025 (Heretic + Hexen Bundle) All Platforms
Background And Development
After the release of the original DOOM by Id Software in 1993, the First Person Shooter genre exploded in popularity and the market was filled with ‘Doom Clones’ a term pejoratively coined for all early FPS games but as the years have passed, the term came to refer to early FPS games with that same mix of 2D sprites in a 3D environment or those developed with Id’s DOOM Engine; Heretic and its sequel Hexen: the subject of this month’s instalment, fit into this latter category.
Id had kept their eye on Raven Software for a while and were impressed with the studio’s early works. After providing the DOOM Engine for Raven’s previous role-playing game: Shadowcaster and seeing them put it to good use it was decided that Raven and not Id themselves would be the ones to bring a medieval DOOM game to life. The idea had been floating around at Id since 1993 but between the release of DOOM 2 and the upcoming Quake, there were bigger priorities.
Heretic was the first FPS game that let you look up and down and featured an inventory system but with Hexen, Raven Software wanted to innovate even further.
Raven’s RPG inclinations seeped back in with Hexen in the form of 3 distinct playable classes: the Fighter, Cleric and Mage, functionally the choice between a ranged glass cannon, an up-close brawler or somewhere in between; one whole class revolving around melee, which was often the desperate backup weapon in early shooters, is quite novel. Raven also made massive structural deviations from the typical FPS formula of the day because Hexen, rather than following a linear set of levels and episodes like DOOM, Quake or Duke Nukem 3D, has a hub and world system similar to Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, with lots of puzzles, hidden switches and non-linear exploration. Duke Nukem 3D gets all the credit for its environmental interactivity and destruction but Hexen already had breakable glass.
While Quake may have been the first multiplayer FPS phenomenon and DOOM brought the genre mainstream you could argue that Raven’s Heretic and Hexen were more indicative of the future of the genre; the biggest FPS games of the late 1990’s, especially on console: games like GoldenEye and Half Life resemble the open-ended exploration and switch hunting of Hexen more than they do the frantic fragging of Quake.
What Hexen Gets Right
Not Just A Clone But An Innovator
Hexen may look like DOOM and its sequel at a glance but when you hit Start and begin playing that’s where the similarities end.
As one of the first FPS games to move beyond MIDI soundtracks, its murky, Conan The Barbarian-like beats, while not as high tempo or catchy, go beyond what was present in those games. I tried each of the three classes for this episode and played up to the second hub area and felt that, especially with the two far ends of the spectrum: the Fighter and the Mage, Raven Software had distilled two distinct DOOM Engine FPS playstyles into whole game approaches; if you’re a player who liked to duck in and duck out, getting up close with the shotgun then backpedalling before you could get hit then you’ll love the Fighter but if you were better at the circle strafing and crowd control and preferred to use weapons like the Chaingun or Plasma Rifle then the Mage will be more to your liking. Personally, I enjoyed the Mage a bit more than the other classes because the Fighter’s inability to easily hit flying enemies is a harsh trade-off and I liked that my gameplan was more defined than that of the Cleric, who felt a bit like an easy mode, especially since he comes equipped with a shield.
Hexen’s hub and sub-world design certainly has some issues but you can’t deny that this design and the rich, dark fantasy atmosphere makes it unique. Heretic and Hexen don’t feel like a Medieval DOOM but their own distinct IP. While playing, I thought it looked and sounded more like Daggerfall than anything Id has ever produced and the lighting effects (which are replicated, albeit to limited success on the N64) reminded me of the areas in DOOM 64 where enemies ambush you in the pitch black and only light fixtures guide your way.
Accessibility And Commemoration (Modern Version)
I’m going to tell you something that every classic FPS fan knows but the rest of the industry hasn’t quite picked up on yet: Nightdive Studios, in regards to remasters and porting classic games to modern hardware, are the best developers in the business. There aren’t many studios these days that I keep a close eye on but Nightdive are one of them.
These Nightdive developed remasters aren’t just easier, cheaper ways to get classic games in your modern hardware’s library but often full-fledged celebrations of these titles with various tools and fixes included (but not mandatory) to ensure that newer players can enjoy them with as little friction as possible. Heretic + Hexen is no different. Included is a suite of accessibility options, a fully remastered soundtrack, an optional new typeface and a whole ‘Raven Vault’ filled with concept art and behind the scenes info on how the game was made. If you love Hexen then I have to imagine you’ll get a lot out of this.
While most remasters, remakes and ports, like the rather lacklustre modern version of Republic Commando I played recently, tend to strip out the multiplayer and any other bonus modes, with Nightdive’s Hexen it all remains intact. I didn’t test the multiplayer but I’ve been led to believe it’s incredibly fun and I’m grateful it even exists at all; if you were playing LAN parties back in the day, no doubt you’ll get more out of this than I ever could.
I do have a slight nit-pick: Hexen’s unique N64 soundtrack, which was rearranged to take advantage of higher quality instruments, isn’t available in Nightdive’s modern version. No doubt you could mod this in quite easily though and considering everything else on offer, this is a tiny blemish.
Balance And Difficulty
I go into basically every game from before the year 2000 with the assumption that it’s going to be tough as nails so I’ve made it a point in my reviews/writing to praise games that were fair with their challenge before such things were commonplace, Hexen is one of those games.
There are a few areas where the level design gets a bit DOOM 64-ish (I.E: random instant kill traps or gankings that you need clairvoyance to see coming) and the projectiles in the Nintendo 64 version seem to have wider hit box than in the Nightdive version but these are rare steep moments in a level of challenge that predictably and steadily climbs upwards. New enemies are introduced at a steady pace and each is more deadly than the last giving the player plenty of time to adapt without being destroyed right away.
What Hexen Gets Wrong
A Compromised Port (N64 Version)
All I can really say about Hexen’s Nintendo 64 port is that it’s good enough; the game is there in its entirety, it doesn’t run horribly, I paid an above average but not extortionate price for my copy (about £36) and it looks alright but the controls are poor and all of the FMV cutscenes are missing.
You see that trigger on the back of the Nintendo 64 controller: the Z button? That button that looks, feels and sounds like a trigger, that button that basically every other N64 shooter uses as a fire button? Well, in Hexen that activates strafe mode and doesn’t fire your weapon, instead you have to press A. The ability to look up and down is so awkward to access too that I just gave up trying to use it and decided to grin and bear firing at an enemy’s feet when engagements took to the stairs. On this version, enemy projectiles seem to have a wider hitbox too.
Hexen for Nintendo 64 is worth owning but unless you’re a serious fan of the console/looking to build a complete library like me or find it at a car boot sale or on Ebay for cheap, I don’t think the purchase is worth it for most people, not when it’s about £13 for Nightdive’s remaster.
Fickle Foes
While Hexen is fun to play, compared to DOOM and other FPS games of the era, I find its roster of enemies to be rather uninteresting, narrow and bland to fight.
According to the internet, you can trigger enemy infighting by encouraging blue on blue with the projectiles but I’ve made several attempts to have it happen to no avail, as well as that, enemies just don’t behave or move about the space in interesting ways like in DOOM, even the projectile-based monsters just seem to charge you and get as close as possible before attacking.
Enemy animations are par for the course for the time and the sprites all look up to scratch but while playing I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was fighting a generic set of fantasy monsters; senior employees at Raven noted that they were big fans of D&D at the time and while I respect how it informed Hexen’s aesthetic and some of its innovations, I wish they had come up with a more interesting enemy roster than the usual ogres and bat-like demons.
Obtuse Level Design
I don’t think it’s inaccurate of me to say that the game Hexen is a sequel to: Heretic tends to be remembered more fondly and there are many reasons for that: it introduced the bulk of Raven Software’s innovations first, it was an undiluted expression of that era of shooters and most importantly, Heretic didn’t have the obtuse and cryptic level design of its sequel.
Don’t get me wrong, you won’t get constantly lost in this game and I found divining the way forward to be easier than in the infamously opaque Turok 2 but it is constant friction with Hexen; not one sub area of each hub can be completed start to finish in one, unbroken dungeon crawl, within a couple of minutes of progress you will flip a switch that opens a door that could be on the other side of the map and then be forced to march back the way you came to check every dead end and locked gate. It reminded me of why I didn’t get on with Demon’s Souls, the game structure and level design get under the feet of the gameplay and having fun. My least favourite area of the game has been a level called the Guardian Of Steel, everything looks the same and you return there to complete what is essentially the same puzzle twice.
The best part of every shooter should be the shooting and getting stuck in to the combat, anything that gets in the way of that better be well-justified, otherwise? Just take it out of the game.
Hexen’s Legacy And My Closing Thoughts
Hexen is a fine shooter. I wouldn’t put it among the greats of the Nintendo 64 and I don’t think it’s anywhere near as good as DOOM or Quake but it’s a cut above the likes of Exhumed (Powerslave in the US) and Nightdive’s modern version is so cheap and accessible that I can’t help but recommend it for anyone interested in classic shooters. Since it comes with Heretic now, even if the level design (which is offset by an option for map waypoints now) proves too irritating for you that game at least provides a more traditional alternative.
But let’s talk about Raven Software, Hexen was one of their first 5 games -and their first FPS game- and what a legacy this studio went on to build.
The Hexen and Heretic series fizzled out not long after the mid-1990’s but the experience developing these games transformed Raven from an RPG studio into one of the premier FPS developers. They went on to develop the first 2 Soldier Of Fortune games which pioneered gore and limb-based damage in FPS games and were 2 early military FPS titles before the genre exploded in the 2000’s.
After Soldier Of Fortune Raven moved on to Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, young Scanlines spent many hours as a kid playing Outcast on the original Xbox and I got into Jedi Academy a few years ago which has a very small, close-knit and friendly multiplayer community to this day. For my money, they are the best 2 Star Wars games ever made outside of KOTOR I and II.
As of 2026, Raven Software has been stuck for years in the Call Of Duty mines. I have nothing against the CoD series: Black Ops, Modern Warfare 2 and World At War especially are classics and I even like some of the newer ones like Modern Warfare 2019 and Black Ops: Cold War but for an innovative, single-player focused developer like Raven to be stuck making mass-market, multiplayer-centric shooters feels like a massive waste.
My next piece will be released on the 4th of May, a few days later than usual. I’ve got a pair of hefty projects in the works at the moment which I’m excited for people to read, please bear with me.
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I haven't played the Nightdive port of Heretic/Hexen yet, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the recent rereleases of Doom 1 and 2, Quake 1 and 2, and especially Doom 64. If you're a hardcore long-time fan, you absolutely have some specific mix of source ports and options that you think creates the perfect experience and have no need for them, but I count myself as one of those and still think they're really well-done and outstanding efforts, especially considering their entire purpose is to repackage extremely old games in a way that's palatable for new players without completely rendering them unrecognizable. I especially like the extra episodes MachineGames made for Quake 1 and 2, and the way all the games have integrated mod managers so you can seamlessly play classic Wads and stuff like Copper in Quake even on a Switch, something that I think would otherwise remain relegated to PC players.
But as far as individual games go, I really never liked Hexen all that much, especially compared to other similar games of the era. The map design is too backtrack-heavy, the game doesn't give enough information about what changes from your inputs [I'm assuming the new objective tracker you mentioned is like the one in Quake 2 that lets you project a little guide on the floor if you need it] and even though the weapons are cool on paper and the class system is neat, the paucity of ammo and the fact you have to make so many trips means you spend a lot of it just whittling shit down with your 'free' weapon and rarely getting to cut loose.
A few years ago I did play something called Scattered Evil, which is, as far as I'm aware, pretty unique in that it's a full Total Conversion mod for Hexen, rather than a GZDoom game, and it turns out that's because it's basically been in development since almost 2000. It basically turns Hexen into an open-world RPG, with cities, vendors, a level system, main and side quests, encumbrance, all kinds of crazy crap. It was really cool, and like Hexen itself, ultimately not that good.
In my opinion, the true descendant of Hexen, and a much better game, is Hedon, which IS a GZDoom game, has similar complexity and systems, but disperses things properly and has far more coherent and enjoyable level structure. Instead of a class system, though, Hedon just has a great selection of guns and such by default, including a melee axe that you can throw through a line of enemies and then retrieve, then a whole additional difficulty mode that gives you a completely separate arsenal of melee-focused weapons, like the ability to carry extra throwing axes, a fire enchanted hammer you can use to rocket jump with, a spear that has the ability to yank enemies into you or off ledges to their death, and so on. Still one of my favorite GZDoom things ever made, and holds up on its own just as a great FPS.
I remember the PC version of this game driving my brother to madness with its level design. So I still haven't had the stomach to go and play this even though I own the Heretic + Hexen bundle on Steam.
Speaking of which, deserved shout-out to Nightdive. They do great work preserving classic FPS games, although I do wish their games would be cheaper at times. Though that's probably Atari's fault.