Heretic + Hexen

Greetings, mortal. Are you ready to play two new episodes?

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this. Specifically: Screenshots, natch.

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: The EXDEFS lumps have lots of comments and credits and such. Look for any unused content in the Heretic: Faith Renewed and Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur expansions.

Test Maps#

Night Dive's tradition continues with the inclusion of several test maps for the Hexen side of the project, this time as a separate add-on WAD in the install directory. It can be loaded with the command-line option -file hextest.wad.

The GAMECONF JSON lump in the WAD helpfully calls it "Hexen Test WAD" with the description "A WAD for testing Hexen features during development". The WADINFO lump less helpfully calls it "LET'S GO EAT KNIVES" with the description "SOMEONE HELP, I'VE BEEN TURNED INTO A SPIDER". Where does the truth truly lie?

MAP01: Test Map#

To quote the WADINFO lump: "I LITERALLY COPY AND PASTED WINNOWING HALL INTO THE TEST MAP BECAUSE I AM A DANK BEAST". Sure enough, this map is built atop Hexen MAP01, with various extra rooms jutting out from the opening courtyard containing items (and scores of Ettins to test them on) and scripting setups, as well as a trio of portals leading to the other maps in the set. The inside of the hall itself is full of various puzzle setups.

Upon entering the level, a script message will appear:

 Welcome to the Test Zone!
 This is a print message from ACS! Hella damn!
 There are 86 ettins in the map. Get Killing!

MAP02: Aux Map 1#

A small ice-themed room for testing Hub stuff. Contains portals to Aux Map 2 and back to the Test map, as well as assorted pickups.

MAP03: Aux Map 2#

Much the same as Aux Map 1, but fire/lava themed. Contains portals back to Aux Map 1 and the Test Map.

MAP04: End Map#

A small, foggy courtyard with a single tree in the center, stared at by various stone reliefs of Korax's face. There is no escape, and no items. Upon entry, the text intermission screen from clearing Seven Portals plays out.

id Vault Leftovers#

The vault subdirectory of common.kpf contains all of the id Vault extras from Doom + Doom II, untouched and unaltered. Presumably as a leftover from the previous Night Dive/id project, which used similar technologies.

This was removed in Update 2.

Revisional Differences#

Update 1 (September 26th, 2025)#

New Features#

• Heretic: Added original game's Firemace placement randomization (albeit with 100% spawn chance instead of the original's 75%)
• Added option to disable cutscene subtitles in Accessibility menu
• Added option to restore original two-button press behavior when selecting inventory items
• Added option to restore original behavior where flying forward or backward will keep you at the same height, regardless of looking up or down
• Added option to disable weapon animation smoothing
• Added 'look up', 'look down', and 'center view' key bindings
• Allow use of more buttons to advance through intermission text screens
• Gameplay Modifiers menu is now accessible from episode and player class screens, instead of just difficulty selection

Changes#

• Hexen: Buffed Bloodscourge damage and adjusted autoaim behavior to work better with large crowds of enemies
• Hexen: Slightly increased attack speed of Timon's Axe
• Hexen: Decreased Quietus mana usage from 14 of each type to 10
• Hexen: Slightly increased Wraithverge mana usage from 18 to 20
• Hexen: Improved smoothness of weapon attack animations for the weapons: Timon's Axe, Hammer of Retribution, Mace of Contrition, Wraithverge, Sapphire Wand, and Bloodscourge
• Improved smoothness of weapon raise and lower animations
• Disable menu ambience if music soundtrack is set to None

Fixes#

• Automap now scrolls at a consistent speed regardless of screen resolution
• Automap now zooms more quickly when using a mouse wheel
• Strafe left and right keys will now cancel each other out to match original game behavior
• Monsters can no longer be pushed off ledges by player weapon attacks
• Triggers can no longer be skipped in certain circumstances when sliding along walls
• Enemy missiles will no longer fire slightly downward, preventing incorrectly exploding on certain windowsills
• Monster melee attacks no longer have infinite height
• Multiplayer scoreboards will no longer show zeroed out stats in certain cases
• Fixed cases where disabling viewbob would cause weapon sprites to offset incorrectly
• Locked door messages will no longer print if door is activated from back side
• Fixed strafe modifier key not working for mouse or controller movement
• Fixed missing accented glyphs in supported languages when using Classic typeface
• Prevented messages at the top of the screen from being stuck after loading certain save games
• Heretic: The Chaos Serpent in Faith Renewed will no longer shoot fireballs over the player’s head
• Heretic: Gauntlets will no longer push enemies backward
• Heretic: Fixed status bar not redrawing correctly on level transition if crossfade option is disabled
• Heretic: Shadowspheres will now correctly penalize enemy aiming at the player
• Heretic: Fix black box on Firemace sprite
• Hexen: Fixed cases where weapon sprites for certain melee weapons (e.g. Cleric Mace) would occasionally jitter
• Hexen: Fixed explosions having infinite height
• Hexen: Messages for switch sequences in Deathkings will now print properly

Level Changes & Fixes#

• Heretic: Fixed inconsistent blood floor texture behavior; blood floors will no longer deal damage)
• Heretic: Fixed inconsistencies between types of locked door textures to be consistent with original game
• Heretic: E1M6: Fixed an instance of overlapping monsters on Hard difficulty
• Heretic: E2M1: Removed a few Weredragons in singleplayer, for a bit less grind
• Heretic: E2M2: Remove mid-air floating stalactite
• Heretic: E2M5: Fixed non-damaging lava sector around yellow key
• Heretic: E2M7: Remove unreachable enemies from disabled green key track on easier difficulty modes
• Heretic: E3M5: Fixed gargoyles getting randomly stuck on hanging corpses
• Heretic: E3M6: Remove out-of-bounds Quartz Flask which caused 100% items being unobtainable
• Heretic: E4M2: Fixed softlock caused by skipping triggers for lowering the yellow key pyramid
• Heretic: E5M1: Fixed unobtainable secrets; add additional Tome of Power to maze area
• Heretic: E5M2: Fixed missing texture on waterfall steps after blue door
• Heretic: E5M3: "Pod-walk" and "Barrel-walk" sections are no longer required to reach the non-secret exit
• Heretic: E5M5: Fixed unobtainable secrets
• Heretic: E5M6: Fixed sky-pillar cutoff when viewing the starting area from the secret ledge outdoors
• Faith Renewed: E5M1: Fixed unobtainable secret
• Faith Renewed: E1M3: Fixed softlock caused by progressing beyond the green doors without a green key
• Faith Renewed: E1M6: Fixed non-lava damaging floor sector
• Faith Renewed: E1M7: Fixed unintended skip to yellow key and softlock caused by leaping into firepits near start
• Faith Renewed: E1M9: Fixed being able to escape beyond the playable bounds of the map in certain areas
• Vestiges of Grandeur: Serpent Temple: Fixed portals to Garden of Medea and Korax's Domain only being usable one time
• Vestiges of Grandeur: Korax's Domain: Fixed softlock when choosing incorrectly for the final puzzle switch
• Vestiges of Grandeur: Korax's Domain: Fixed co-op shortcut teleporter only being usable one time

Microsoft Store#

New Features

• Added support for using the Windows virtual keyboard for text inputs

Changes

• Removed option for exclusive fullscreen to fix some issues with Game Bar overlays and to allow virtual keyboard to work

Modding Changes#

• Added warning that the mod uploader is not available when using a controller
• Heretic: Added a new non-randomized Firemace actor that can be placed in custom maps
• Heretic: Resolved issue where wand start option was not available when launching Heretic mods
• Heretic: Removed ambient sound limit
• Heretic: Removed D'Sparil boss teleport spot limit
• Heretic: Sector type 4 will now visually scroll again
• Added WF_AUTOAIMFARTHEST flag for weapons; instructs weapon to prioritize the furthest available target for autoaim, rather than the nearest
• Added A_MStaffAttackEX (customizable Bloodscourge attack) codepointer
• Fix issue when setting playerclass flags in EXDEFS
• A_RadiusDamage now has flags for customizing behavior
• Added 'endpalette' and 'enddemon' UMAPINFO keys, allowing arbitrary maps to use finales for Heretic Episodes 2 and 3
• Fix crash when loading certain old mods that utilize custom textures
• Updated order of graphic lumps in IWADs to match the originals, to fix potential HUD display issues in community source ports
• Moved UMAPINFO lump for Heretic to heretic_ex.wad, for better compatibility with community source ports
• Only evaluate the -warp commandline option on first launch, not when switching games in the game selection screen

Update 2 (November 4th, 2025)#

New Features#

• Added additional content to the Raven Vault

Fixes#

General

• Keys will no longer reset when respawning in cooperative mode when modern cooperative is disabled
• Fixed some rare crashes around changing music when navigating through the Raven Vault
• Sky drawing no longer repeats when looking straight up with the fullscreen HUD enabled

Heretic

• Improved physics when walking over explosive pods, making them harder to accidentally slip off now
• Tomed Dragon Claw sub-projectiles will no longer immediately explode when firing at the floor

Hexen

• Enemies can no longer see or use melee attacks on you through polygonal objects
• Class selection now works properly when changing class in split screen multiplayer
• Disabled difficulty modifiers from incorrectly showing up when changing class
• Fixed missing sprites in Mage's Arc of Death attack

PC Fixes

• Vibration settings are now set correctly per player in split screen modes

Nintendo Switch Fixes

• Disabling vertical look will no longer cause the camera to slowly drift when using the right stick

Modding Changes#

• Additional textures and flats from the Raven Vault added to HERETIC.WAD for use in mods
• Added ability to override built-in state jumps in action functions via custom state labels, similar to community source ports
• EXDEFS and ANIMDEFS lumps are now loaded 'cumulatively', i.e. all lumps of the same name will be loaded, instead of only the 'last' one
• EXDEFS: Added ability for actors to define a custom spawn ID for use in ACS scripts
• EXDEFS: Added ability to assign custom terrain definitions (e.g. water splashes, lava, ice) to floor textures
• EXDEFS: Added ability to add & replace strings (text) for all supported languages
• EXDEFS: Added ability to define custom switch textures
• EXDEFS: Added support for MBF21 functions
• GAMECONF: Added ability for a mod to override Enhancement options (e.g. force enhanced enemies/weapons/items on or off)
• GAMECONF: Added a new "gamedefaults" section which allows for customizing many previously-hardcoded values that differ per-game (e.g. menu sounds, falling damage, etc.)

References#