03 December 2025

The Bad & Ugly in Heretic + Hexen

Heretic + Hexen Game/Expansion Selection Screen.

The unfortunate nature of re-releases and remasters are that they would never be perfect. After all, perfection isn't something achievable when you really think about it. You'll always have some flaws, inaccuracies or even missing features. While it's not something that would bother newcomers and such due to lack of prior experience, for the die-hard fans these things would be a problem. Some things could be tolerable, but some shouldn't be.

Aside from that, there's a matter of presentation and approach to the project itself. Ideally you would want to have a re-release or remaster done by a group of people with enough love to the original(s) and dedication to preserving essential aspects of game(s) they work on. Even without the first part, you can still achieve the second one with the right focus and handling of its development.

I like Heretic. I love Hexen: Beyond Heretic. Can I recommend Heretic + Hexen? No. After playing it for many hours and looking around to gain more insight into it, I don't think it was handled in a way it should've been. From evidently lazy approach to missing details and outright false advertisement. This re-release was also quite an eye-opener to how Nightdive Studios operates, and it's also something that needs to be addressed.


Incompatible Collection.

Sometimes you get a re-release of a game, but other times you get a re-release compilation. Releases like Super Mario All-Stars, Blizzard Arcade Collection and Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered put a few games in one package that's connected by being part of one franchise, specific game series or other connection like the same developer or original publisher.

One thing you'll notice is that these compilations have a certain logic behind them:

  • Super Mario All-Stars combines all 4-5 (there's a version of All-Stars with Super Mario World) classic Mario platformers that organically connect with one another. Only the USA version of Super Mario Bros. 2 that was a revamp of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic stands out the most as its core gameplay is very different from other games in the collection.
  • Blizzard Arcade Collection includes 5 early Blizzard games, but that's technically an inaccurate description. Since it actually includes 3 versions of The Lost Vikings, 3 versions of Rock n' Roll Racing, 3 versions of Blackthorne and one version of The Lost Vikings 2 & RPM Racing. They all even themselves out, so all games look organic and don't detract from each other.
  • Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered has just one version of first three Tomb Raider games. It's just as simple as that. Each game in this compilation complement each other perfectly.

All games in these compilations are very similar with some outliers occasionally. There's also an example like Atari 50: the Anniversary Collection, but I'm not going to list over 100 games from that compilation. In that case, there's very wide selection of different games that makes perfect sense. Considering that game compilations like this have been a thing since forever in the industry, you can also find bad examples of multiple games in one package that don't really make sense when you think about it for some time.

Heretic + Hexen is actually one of these compilations and this might be surprising to some, but let me elaborate on that. While both games have been developed by Raven Software using modified versions of Doom Engine, take place in the same broader universe and share the same genre, last connection is quite loose. There's a logic to Hexen not being called Heretic 2 — it's not just another fantasy take on classic DOOM formula, which is actually not really a right way to describe Heretic either. Inclusion of items alone already creates a different dynamic in Heretic's combat. As for Hexen, combat isn't even as much of a focus in the game. It's a game with RPG elements and higher emphasis on map puzzles that's crucial for player's progression.

By putting these two games in one package, you lose out on the chance to let each title get a proper spotlight that they deserve. They can clash in a way that could lead to a very jarring experience for some players, depending on their gaming preferences. Not every person who likes Heretic would necessarily like Hexen and vice versa. Ironically enough, this also let to a crucial bug for the initial release version of this re-release where its Hexen portion shared the infinite height mechanic (a video example of it affecting enemies) with Heretic (and classic DOOMs) instead of not having it, which is how it should be. This issue was miraculously fixed in Update 1, but this shows that putting two games into one client wasn't that great of an idea.

When I was collecting information for "Astounding Observations" segment, I've spotted a comment from Xaser (a Nightdive developer I'll mention later in the post) on how they've faced some bugs during beta testing that appeared after switching from one game to another. That's another confirmation how combining two titles into one re-release only complicated the development process and caused more issues they had to deal with.


Regressive Menu & Dark Pattern.

One of the things I would like to highlight, similarly to its music nonsense, is the main menus of Heretic + Hexen. They feel off and rather incomplete compared to some of Nightdive's previous work and parts of it seem to be intentionally obtuse. All these things make for a not that good of an experience and, at this point, it's unlikely that this critic would be listened to. This can be said about a lot of things, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, let's talk about demo playback in Heretic + Hexen. What demo playback? Exactly, it's missing for this re-release and I have my theory as to why. You see, the reason why we got this compilation a year after DOOM + DOOM 2 is because Nightdive used it as a foundation for Heretic + Hexen. This was stated by Mike "sponge" Rubits in noclip_2's "EXCLUSIVE - We talked to id Software & Nightdive about bringing back Heretic & Hexen" video:

"So the boring answer is they're both Doom Engine games, uh. <...>We had just done all that work with DOOM and DOOM 2 with, uh, multi-threaded renderer and, uh, all, all those enhancements and, like, kind of actually seemed like a natural fit. Once we were able to, to realize that we could actually pop Heretic and Hexen into our engine."

The fact that you could find the entirety of DOOM + DOOM 2's id Vault inside Heretic + Hexen's files is one of the main indicators that they literally ported those two games over into their iteration of Doom Engine running through KEX Engine and threw required features for Heretic and Hexen in. This is likely why demo playback doesn't work in the first place, aside from the fact that 2/3 of Heretic's demo loop is desynced in the original game since Patch 1.2. Gameplay Modifiers thing probably didn't help things either, but I would assume it's not impossible to enforce original gameplay specifically for the demos regardless of player's choice.

You can look at demo loops for full versions of Heretic, Hexen and DotDC here:

Should you compare the main menu of original Hexen or Deathkings of the Dark Citadel with its re-release version, you'll immediately notice that Maulotaur statues with animated flames that are placed at each side of game's logo are missing in Heretic + Hexen. As far as I could tell, even various source ports make sure to preserve this part of the menu... Wait, I forgot about rotating golden skulls in Heretic! They're gone too!

Looking at Common.kpf page on The Doom Wiki shows another funny bit about it. This archive is included in both DOOM + DOOM 2 and Heretic + Hexen and there's a "vid" content that described in following way:

"Video versions, in WebM format, of the attract loop for Doom, Doom II, TNT: Evilution, The Plutonia Experiement, Master Levels for Doom II, No Rest for the Living, SIGIL, SIGIL II, and Legacy of Rust. This only covers one demo per title. These are shown instead of the titlepic on the game select screen after a short delay."

Although you can record demos in DOOM + DOOM 2 via "demo_record" & "demo_stop" commands, trying to use "demo_play" command for the demo that you've recorded does absolutely nothing. You can see all of these commands in a list after typing "help" into console. I found a "Demo recording issue?" topic in re-release's Steam Discussions where player BippoErnesti highlights that the demo support is apparently very janky. While this was written before Update 2 & 3, I still managed to make re-release crash when trying to record demo in SIGIL. Adding ".lmp" at the end of recorded demo files and moving them from game's core folder to "rerelease" + launching it with "-playdemo" launch option allowed me to watch demos ("demo_play" command just doesn't work). Recording through "demo_record" does default to game/expansion's first map. I couldn't get to other maps, so you should probably use launch options for that as well.

Interestingly enough, Heretic + Hexen shows all three commands in "help" list. "demo_record" & "demo_stop" commands actually work just like in DOOM + DOOM 2 and "demo_play" command also doesn't work. Trying "-playdemo" launch option and adding ".lmp" to files (no need to move demo files themselves)... works as well. I assume there's no way to make a proper loop out since "-playdemo" will only play one demo. That's likely what "vid" thing in Common.kpf is for, but that just makes it more frustrating. Because it's all right there! You need to record and add it for playback.

Main Menus in DOS versions of Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, Hexen: Beyond Heretic and Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel.

If you look at Heretic + Hexen's main menu and compare it to other re-releases like original Quake, you'll notice two things — missing "Achievements" option and no thematic button prompts for navigating the menus. In-game achievements have been a stable for all prior id Software-adjacent re-releases on all platforms, but this time they're been reserved solely for Nintendo Switch & Switch 2. It's odd to change things up now, but that's what we got.

id Software-adjacent Re-Release PC Button Prompt Comparison.

As for the button prompts, they serve as one of the key elements in the dark pattern implementation of Gameplay Modifiers feature in Heretic + Hexen. Because prompts are present only in their Modern/Accessibility form (Multiplayer lobby menu also utilizes only Modern font) and they're placed far away from main menu itself, it's incredibly easy to completely miss them for players that stick with Classic fonts. It's slightly better for gamepads (at least for Xbox one; trying to screenshot prompts switches them to keyboard), but the font itself is still too plain to catch your eyes. You're more likely to notice this option in "Level Select" menu simply because it's right in front of you there. I certainly did.

Heretic + Hexen First Launch Soundtrack Warning. Taken from YouTube.

On top of this, re-release itself doesn't put any effort to actually inform players about the existence of Gameplay Modifiers as an option you can change. It does notify you about Accessibility features and Remix soundtrack options on your first launch, but nothing would inform players about the existence of 'enhancements'. Instead, all of these options are enabled by default, and you have to either stumble into them by complete accident or know about them in advance. 

This issue in particular extends to outside the re-release itself, therefore I'll continue to talk about it in its own segment.


Oddness of Modifiers Presentation.

You would think that Gameplay Modifiers were one of the key marketing pieces for Heretic + Hexen, but you would be wrong. Strangely, it's actually just as hidden as it is in the re-release itself and that's pretty weird. If you watch the launch trailer without having any prior experience in Heretic and/or Hexen, you won't have any idea that Cleric shouldn't have a Shield and you won't be told about it. Not even a single clue about it.

Things get even more interesting if you take a look at game's pages on all platforms it is available on. Just to make this part easier for myself and let you see this for yourself, I'll make a list of them. Open every page and take a careful look at them:

  • Xbox (PC & Xbox Series X|S).

"New Enhancements" Lists for Heretic + Hexen on Steam (Dark Blue), GOG (Dark Grey) & Nintendo Store (White).

Once you do that, you'll notice another weirdness related to presentation of Gameplay Modifiers. Steam & GOG listings have the most detailed descriptions of them all and they go in-depth to list all Heretic + Hexen has to offer. "New Enhancements" section lists over 13 new additions included in the re-release and "Game balance toggle (original/enhanced)" listed 9th there. Don't you think it's odd how they listed it so low and didn't bother to give a more detailed description to it? Description of enhancements on console platforms is worse; Nintendo's is shorter and with Xbox & PlayStation they clearly stopped caring about highlighting any additions. None of them mention "game balance toggle" anywhere. Heretic + Hexen Release Notes in Slayers Club & Steam don't say anything about Gameplay Modifiers either. Keep all of these details in mind as I highlight the nature and reasoning behind balance changes.

Similarly to Quake's re-release with its approach to Nightmare mode (that should also be a toggleable option) taking inspiration from at-the-time version of Copper mode, Heretic + Hexen's owns its Gameplay Modifiers to work of community enthusiasts. In aforementioned noclip_2 video, Mike "sponge" Rubits said the following about balance changes:

"Uh, on the Heretic side, we worked with, uh, we working with an author of a mod called "The Wayfarer's Tomb": guy by name Not Jabba. He, he basically kind of looked at all Heretic weapons & enemies and rebalanced them.

You know, the original games, the enemies were kind of spongy. You, you would just need a lot of shots to take down some of those guys. And it's just like, you know, you're not really testing players by doing that. You're just kind of using up their time. Uh, so we integrated that, officially. It just kind of paces up the game a bit and, and keeps you, you on your toes.

Uh, on Hexen side, we did a lot of similar tweaks. Um. The most visible one would be, uh for the Cleric. We added, uh, the Shield because... I mean, you can't have a Cleric without a Shield. Like, what are you doing there? And along with that we added parrying because everyone knows parrying systems now. So, you-you can parry projectiles & melee attacks and it'll kind of put enemies into a stun for a second and you can get, uh, one big hit on them.

It-it-it makes the Cleric, uh, just feel a lot more different. Because... a lot of games have still not figured out melee in first-person. It is incredibly hard to, to do that well and very few people have. And trying to do it on the Doom Engine in that time frame is just like... it, it's amazing. It feels as good as it does even back then."

...actually, let's switch to "reasoning" part of this instead. Earlier in the video, Stephen Kick also shared his perspective on the gameplay of Heretic & Hexen:

"The number one thing that stands out to me still is just, um, how bullet spongy some of the enemies are. Like, you could just sit there with the mouse button and just be like 'come on, just die already! I want to keep going!' Yeah, I don't remember beating it that first time.

But more recently, a couple of years ago, I put up, you know, the original versions on my, uh, Pentium 3800 to get through them. To, to experience them as they were originally, uh-h, released. And, uh, yeah, it was a challenge. Between... you know, the levels being extremely labyrinthian, it's on theme with the fantasy. The dark, you know, dungeon setting and everything like that.

But, yeah, having being used to playing DOOM and everything else, it was like... You-you kind of had to rewire your brain for that particular experience. Even just understanding what some of the, uh, power-ups and picks-ups did. Because it doesn't necessarily explain to you, uh-h, what they do right away. So, it's like 'What is that? What does that do? When should I use that?'

Because there's, uh, there's like more strategy involved, um-m-m... than what we were used to, at least when we all played DOOM first, right?"

Based on how they talk about it, I don't think they have a full understanding of combat in Heretic and Hexen. Enemies in Heretic may be spongy... if you fall into hoarder's trap (happened to me) or just complete ignore the items. With stuff like Tome of Power, Time Bomb of the Ancients and Morph Ovum, that stops being an issue because they're part of player's arsenal. Some items can be rarer than others and it depends on the map itself, but you usually get a few Tomes and Bombs on a regular basis. Heretic even encourages you to use all items you find by letting you carry over only one of each to the next map. So the problem isn't in weapons themselves, but on some players not utilizing their inventory.

If we move over to Hexen, then it's simply the matter of it being a beast of its own. I already kind of talked about that before here, so I'll just state that it is a much slower game with a focus on exploration and puzzles. Hexen isn't really about fighting lots of monsters, even though you need to do that sometimes. You're meant to take your time to progress through each Hub, that's the main point. Pick a class with its set of strengths and weaknesses, depending on your preferences. Trying to lean more about combat aspect of Hexen or even attempting to balance classes in order to make them more equal is a waste of time since that's not the kind of game that needs all that.

Okay, back to modding influences. Sacrilege is a work-in-progress "remix" project for Heretic developed by Xaser Acheron with an aim towards overhauling game's maps and adding some new ones here and there while also taking some inspirations from The Wayfarer's Tomb. It was first revealed on Doomworld in January 2023, but progress has been incredibly slow due to Xaser being busy with other projects... Until the release of Heretic + Hexen, after which he confirmed that most of the work he did for Sacrilege was moved over into the re-release. Yeah, Xaser works in Nightdive Studios.

He's also apparently the one responsible for Hexen's Gameplay Modifiers, including the very questionable rework of Bloodscourge in a form of disabling the homing of its projectiles. Xaser said that "makes it a more effective weapon in general"... No? Bloodscourge's projectiles can be kind of janky with its homing, but they're incredibly useful with crowds of enemies and more open spaces. I've been replaying Hexen and jumping between classes regularly and Bloodscourge was very useful in its original form. Taking out its uniqueness is quite disappointing.

Not even get me started about the Shield. Cleric is arguably the most powerful class in Hexen due to Wraithverge and the gas cloud he gets from Fléchette alone. His starting weapon is the weakest compared to other classes, sure, but his strengths outweigh that. Why not make a Shield available? After all, Heretic + Hexen's key art actually depicts Fighter holding a shield! Make it a rare drop from Centaur/Slaugtaur that can be used by all classes and that breaks after like 5 successful parries because of how broken that mechanic is. Seriously, the "parry-then-strike" combo makes "Enhanced" version of Mace of Contrition as strong as Wraithverge and that's just ridiculous!

Despite how it might come across, I'm actually not against the idea of remixing some parts of Heretic & Hexen by itself. In fact, I would say allowing the projectiles from Frost Shards to pass through frozen enemies and changes to Timon's Axe, Quientus and Wraithverge from Update 1 seem more reasonable. In fact, it doesn't even matter how good or bad changes introduced by Gameplay Modifiers are. I don't know what many of them are because I just skipped over them. I criticize only something I actually interacted with, which is Weapons and Maps in Hexen (the latter changes are very minimal, so it's fine) I may not agree with some of them, but that's not my main gripe with them — them being enabled by default and actively not telling players about Modifiers is.

There's an almost idealistic belief among players that re-releases and remasters to preserving the games in their original form and presenting them to new audiences and old fans alike. With Heretic + Hexen, you get a case where Nightdive and id Software actively attempts to reshape these games in their image. Not let the vision of Raven Software to shine like it supposed to. Let me show out an exchange between player and Nightdive developer in their Discord server and compare that with a certain quote from another:

Nightdive Studios Developer Suggesting Gameplay Modifiers for First-Time Heretic Playthrough.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord Server.

Surprisingly enough, there was another conversation that additionally highlights Nightdive's apparent attitude towards Gameplay Modifiers as it lines up with aforementioned examples of how this part of Heretic + Hexen was presented:

A Conversation About Heretic Alterations Between Hendricks266 & Edward850.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord Server.

While Hendricks266 could've described the issue with Gameplay Modifiers fully in his messages (he probably wasn't aware of the full picture, at least at that moment), it's worth noting the manner at which Edward850 was responding to what was said as a Nightdive developer: not really addressing and completely misunderstanding what's being said with server's moderators interjecting similarly. Just take a note of that for some later parts of this "article". This may or may not be a foreshadowing.

Compare all of that to what Xaser himself wrote in "YE OLDE QUESTIONSE" segment in his "[WIP] Sacrilege - Heretic "Remix" Project" topic on Doomworld:

"Q: OK, but "Better Heretic," really? C'mon man, ain't that a bit ego-headed?

A: Despite the cheeky marketing speak above, this really just a fun personal project; even though the rough goal is "improve things", it's still just "Heretic the way Xaser wants to see it" more than "The Definitive Most Objectively Best Heretic Version Ever". Though I'm doing my best to try and identify each map's strengths and bring them out rather than just steamroll everything with my own BS, it's highly likely that a map you love hasn't made the cut or I end up making some changes to something that feel poopy or weird, 'cause that kind of thing is inevitable with these sorts of projects. Do share if you think I ruined a thing though -- this isn't meant to be a pre-emptive deflection of criticism or anything, just an acknowledgment that I'm a goofy bastard with opinions. :P"

That's really how it should be. A "Heretic/Hexen the way id & Nightdive want to see them", not "Heretic/Hexen the way id & Nightdive want you to see them" (that's me being charitable because I don't think id really cared all that much). This cheeky note from Xaser makes me suspect that the reason why Gameplay Modifiers can be turned on/off in the first place is probably thanks to him, considering how you can't opt out of any alterations Nightdive introduced in Quake, Quake 2 and DOOM + DOOM 2. I mean, The Doom Wiki does give credit to Xaser for EXDEFS lump that's responsible for this exact thing. Without any reference, but let's just assume it's not lying about that. Doesn't change the fact that the toggle seem to exist just to dodge any criticism towards all the changes: just point to the toggle's existence, ignoring how deliberately obscure it is.

It's not uncommon for modders to try and "improve" a certain game. Such projects can lead to various results, but at the end it's just someone messing around. With this mindset in mind, Gameplay Modifiers are actually completely fine. It should've been presented and marketed as such: just a remix you can toggle on, preferably after playing both games in its original form. Activating them by default and being actively evasive about it isn't just disingenuous, but also very disrespectful to people who worked on Heretic & Hexen in Raven Software at the time.

Listed Developers & Publisher for Heretic + Hexen on Steam, GOG, Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation.

This made worse by the fact that Raven Software also doesn't get appropriate recognition as the original developer of these games. Company is mentioned in re-release's descriptions and copyright text on its store pages, but looking at "Developer" line on Steam, "Company" on GOG and/or "Developed by" on Xbox (PlayStation & Nintendo pages I've linked don't display developers at all, it seems) will show you "id Software, Nightdive Studios". Not Raven Software and that's a silly oversight. PlayStation and Nintendo listings don't even have a dedicated section for developers, which is an issue by itself. 

Worth noting that some of these concerns have already been expressed before publicly. "Hexen + Heretic (Nightdive)" thread on Doomworld shows confirmations of issues that I've described before. More than 10 posts in, you can see people confused about gameplay alterations in Heretic and being sure that Gameplay Modifiers are available only in Level Select menu (in this case, player even uses Accessibility font and still missed prompts).

Then you can see Koff3Katt says "The enhancements on by default and hidden I don't vibe with, I wish it was broadcasted to the player" and then talks about people not understanding Heretic's weapons damage is more random than DOOM, "which can result in consecutive low damage rolls and not the weapons being weak". While KingNafles seem to prefer re-release's enhancements, he talked about how it could've done a better job at informing players about Gameplay Modifiers and also highlighted marketing omission. Much later in the topic, whybmonotacrab provides a very moderate comment on how these critiques shouldn't be dismissed and agrees Gameplay Modifiers should be better communicated.

I would recommend you going through that topic a bit more on your own since I don't want to fully mirror it here. Just be warned about forum absurdness with attempts to derail conversation and dismiss feedback/criticism as some toxic drama (as pointed out by gibfrag and not just once). At some point, I just gave up on following discussions there. However, I would like to share this great comment and two replies by Doom64hunter that points out not just obtuse messaging surrounding Gameplay Modifiers, but others things that stood out to me and I'll point them out later on in this "article". That comment will spoil them in a way, so keep that in mind.

Honestly, it's kind of surprising how much I managed to write about all this. One good thing you can mention about Gameplay Modifiers is that, despite how obscure they're, it's there as an option. Prior re-releases (Quake & Quake 2) don't let you disable any alterations off, so you have to either rely on older client on PC or just get denied that experience on consoles.

Just like with Gameplay Modifiers, Heretic + Hexen doesn't proper inform players about the differences between proper text/ending screens for PC/Nintendo 64 versions and CGI cutscenes made for PlayStation/Sega Saturn ports of Hexen: Beyond Heretic. There's no warning screen on first launch for that like there's for Accessibility and Soundtrack options either. Because of this, all new players (and a few random playthrough I randomly looked at on YouTube) would end up sticking specifically to cutscenes due to not being informed about the existing choice available in Gameplay Options. At the very least, it's slightly more likely for them to stumble into it due to this setting being placed alongside options like "Unlock All Cheats" and "Always Run".

Heretic + Hexen Gameplay-Gameplay Options and Their Descriptions.

I'll note that it's curious how, unlike these other options, "Hexen Cutscene" doesn't mention that by default it is enabled. As for some things missing from Heretic + Hexen outright:

  • Heretic uses the original key art for its main menu. Shadow of the Serpent Riders uses a different illustration that's not utilized in the re-release. There's no option to select it. Alternately, episodes exclusive to SotSR could've been separated into its own expansion with appropriate main menu.
  • Much like in DOOM + DOOM 2, you can't name your saves. All saves are also placed in one menu, so it's too easy to overwrite or accidentally delete a save from one game/expansion while playing another. There's a mention of what game/expansion the save is for in the menu, but you can still easily overlook that when quickly picking save for reloading.
  • Ability to make saves for multiplayer was removed due to nature of re-release's mutliplayer. I don't know if an idea for "classic cooperative" without an ability for players to join mid-game was even considered, it's impossible to know. Because of this, you have to play through entirely of Hexen: Beyond Heretic in one go if you wish to get all secrets and enjoy proper progression with fourth weapons.
  • Heretic + Hexen includes and enables by default cutscenes from PlayStation port of Hexen, but there's no option for selecting their original versions like in Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster. This is also an issue for Quake 2's re-release. There's also no warning about cutscenes on re-release's first launch as they replace the traditional text/ending screens.

Gameplay Modifiers is a big example of an intentionally obscure element in this re-release, but it's not the only one.


Shadowcaster Transit.

A standout part of "Enhanced Maps" in Hexen's side of a re-release are book lecterns ("Hexen Chronicle", as Nightdive calls it) that give you direct access to switching your class in the game. What do I mean by "direct access"? You could always change your class in Hexen at any point in the game and expansion, but this option was locked behind "Shadowcaster" cheat (a reference to Raven Software's other title) that you might be too lazy to type out each time you want to switch things up. Maybe you also just don't want to use cheats for whatever reason.

I wanted to quickly mention this because, strangely enough, one aspect of this cheat was seemingly altered in a way that makes it a bit harder to use. When you type "Shadowcaster" in original Hexen, you'll get an in-game message that will give a somewhat useful tip to use 0-2 numbers to swap a class. It doesn't tell what class assigned to which number, but you can figure it out through trial and error. Typing out the cheat correctly and class switching itself are also accompanied by the same sound effect that's used for when you open/close main menu.

Hexen Original & Re-Release Shadowcaster Message Comparison.

While "Shadowcaster" cheat is still working in Heretic + Hexen, that tip you would get after successfully typing in the code is gone. Sound effects are also absent. Instead, you get a "So be it!" message after you press one of the numbers to change your class. Attempting to enter "Shadowcaster" in Cheats menu instead of using the classic method of pressing keys on your keyboard in-game, you'll get a "Nothing happens" message. You usually get it after typing an incorrect code and that's clearly not the case here.

Trying To Activate "Enter Code" (Not A Real Cheat), "Shadowcaster" & "Visit" Cheats in "Cheats" Menu for Hexen in Heretic + Hexen.

Now compare this to "Engage" (Heretic) and "Visit" (Hexen) cheats that work very similarly (first you type the cheat itself, then press two numbers on your keyboard) — typing them in Cheats menu will give you "Use the Level Select menu instead!" window. The Doom Wiki even makes a note for "Visit", but it appears that (when I'm writing this) they forgot to either check or publish a similar note for "Shadowcaster" cheat.

If not for the changes in what messages "Shadowcaster" cheat displays in Heretic + Hexen, I would've assumed that not acknowledging it in "Cheats" menu was an oversight. But with  "Gameplay Modifiers" situation in mind, this feels deliberate. Perhaps it's an attempt to present Hexen Chronicles as fully new feature and not a "legit" access to "Shadowcaster" cheat functionality with intent to encourage players to keep "Enhanced Levels" enabled.

The exclusion of "Visit" cheat in Hexen & "Engage" cheat in Heretic from "Cheats" menu in the re-release is also rather bizarre. If someone wants to jump between maps faster (either to mess around or test something in their own episode), having an ability to do that using "Cheats" menu would've been more quicker than opening Pause Menu, selecting "Exit Game" and click "New Game" to access "Level Select". It sounds quite tedious too.

Transit map from Deathkings of the Dark Citadel in Heretic + Hexen.

Deathkings of the Dark Citadel stands out by having a bonus hub called Transit that's dedicated specifically to Deathmatch. It starts with a map of the same name that's just a small room with a few teleport switches to another maps within the hub. Fighting here is discouraged as even hitting air will result in Transit killing all present players. While Transit map is presented in Heretic + Hexen and you can reach it via "Visit" cheat code ("VISIT33", to be specific), you can't access it through Create Match menu where you set up your Multiplayer lobby. Instead, you can only pick all the other maps that are part of Transit hub.


Episodic Vagueness.

As if previous instances of obfuscations weren't enough, Heretic + Hexen has room for something even more egregious. One of the nicest elements of id Software game re-releases were the additions of new campaigns. It was known that Dimension of Machine for Quake & Call of the Machine for Quake 2 were created by MachineGames. Not stated in trailers for each re-release, but mentioned on games' pages in available platforms, various articles and such.

Legacy of Rust Credits Screen.

This component was shaken up for DOOM + DOOM 2. Rather than have one developer work on this new content, it turned into a collaboration between multiple groups. Legacy of Rust was advertised as a collaborative effort of id Software, MachineGames & Nightdive Studios with this fact being pointed out in re-release's trailer and so on. Although it's actually more like "developed by Nightdive with help from id & MachineGames", but ultimately it was still an actual collaborative effort of people employed in aforementioned companies. For example, Roger Berrones was an in-house Principle Animator for DOOM Eternal and its DLCs & Kevin Dunlop from MachineGames is credited for Environment Art in base game and The Ancient Gods Part 2.

Same approach was taken for Heretic + Hexen where Nightdive Studios & id Software joined forces to create Faith Renewed for Heretic and Vestiges of Grandeur for Hexen. This fact was actively advertised in the trailer and re-release's pages on all platforms. If you take this statement at face value or you're familiar with prior re-release expansions, you're going to believe that these expansions were created by in-house developers from both companies.

Faith Renewed Credits Screen.

Vestiges of Grandeur Credits Screen.

Looking deeper into credits paints a different picture, however. You'll find out that no in-house developer from id Software had any involvement in stated collaboration! It's only developers from Nightdive Studios or people with modding background that were likely contracted by id Software to help them out. Besides Not Jabba, another "outsider" is Arthur "aDaya" Biver — freelance artist and designer who worked on Core Decay and developed Tomb of Thunder mod for Quake. The rest are developers from Nightdive Studios.

Considering how new re-release expansions before involved only in-house developers from video game companies, this is another case of dubious marketing at best. It might be fair to assume that aDaya & Not Jabba were contracted by id Software specifically, but that's not the point. Rather than fully acknowledge them as mod creators brought in for their talent, these people were labelled as "id Software developers" since that's what people became accustomed to and many of them are unlikely to look deeper than a trailer.

Mike "sponge" Rubits' acknowledgement of Not Jabba's work in noclip_2 video is amazing. It's unlikely that every Heretic + Hexen player saw that video or heard about Not Jabba before though, so that's not really enough. This also doesn't change the fact that aDaya remains largely overshadowed in all this.


Vision & Flying Neglect.

Accessibility options are nice. Getting a prompt about them when you launch some game for the first time may be annoying, but overall that's a very small thing to be frustrated about. It's just something that allows people to avoid specific issues that otherwise would've made their gameplay experience difficult in certain ways. If you don't have any need in accessibility issues, you can just easily avoid them.

It's good that Heretic + Hexen has these options to begin with, but re-release is evidently lacking on vision department. A lack of true 3D rendering mixed in with enabled vertical look can make some people sick. In "No true 3D projection = Insane dizziness, nausea and headache" topic for game's Steam Discussions, someone shares how badly it affects him and then shared similar experiences from the topic that were shared later. Even one of my friends was affected by this problem and the only way to avoid it is to disable free look altogether. I'm not affected by this, thankfully.

You can play through entirety of Heretic and Hexen without free look, but it's rather odd to not account for motion sickness when Accessibility is one of the things that are highlighted in re-release's trailer. What's even more unfortunate is how some other users decided to berate that user for trying to shine the light on this (what is a foreshadowing?). While he definitely could've worded everything much better, his position is totally understandable as you probably wouldn't want to lose out on this common element of the re-release when you know there's a way you can have access to it too. Perhaps he logically deserved some harshness for his initial communication, but it still doesn't excuse others bashing him for asking 3D renderer option instead of being better than this and reason with him calmly.

It's not all that bad though. "Since I didn't see a post on it, I'll speak on it" and "Perspective warp looking up and down" topics had a more civil discussion regarding this issue. While there were some detractors tried to disregard this issue or defend true 3D rendering's absence for whatever reason, there's more people who agreed that these health concerns should've been accounted for. After that previous mess of a topic, I'm glad that I managed to find more positive and civil discussions about this.

The "Nightdive will not add this option because they want to preserve original experience" argument is rather ironic since their approach to "Gameplay Modifiers" directly contradicts that. They're perfectly okay with taking liberties by defaulting to their gameplay revisions and obscuring the option to go back to the original experience. Having an option that may overstep certain aspect of original games while allowing people to access free look without getting sick doesn't seem that bad to me.

Right now, you would have to select "Input" in "Options" and disable "Enable Vertical Look" setting. Once this done, your mouse will move in the same way it does in original versions of Heretic & Hexen where looking up and down is possible only with dedicated keys. Same goes for flying... It's probably not surprising that something went wrong with that as well. And this is something that affects everyone actually, but especially PC players who play with keyboard and mouse.

Xaser's Indirect Reply to Missing Keybinds & Strafe Oddities in Heretic + Hexen.
Taken from Doomworld.

Default key binds were neglected and also initially incomplete due to some random bug late in development, according to Xaser. "Look Up", "Look Down" and "Center View" key binds for keyboard were added in Update 1, which is mind-boggling. Not for controller, its bindings for movement and camera are very restricted in comparison. Another issue that was also present on initial release and remained unaddressed are incomplete default key binds for keyboard and mouse. There're some actions you won't be able to do without opening the setting and binding the keys yourself.

I had to use 800x600 for bindings screenshot down below in favor of 640x480 because button prompts in this resolution in Borderless Window Mode break by turning into some kind of black square mess. Trying to select 640x480 (or any other resolution) in Fullscreen Window Mode leads to the game defaulting to my native 1920x1080 resolution. Changing "Graphics API" & "Resolution Scale", enabling "Vertical Sync" and disabling "Widescreen" option didn't change that behavior.

Heretic + Hexen Default Movement Bindings for Keyboard+Mouse & Gamepad (as of Update 1 & 2).

It's not something that you should be expected to do in a re-release. Some players won't even think of going deep into settings because it's either their first experience with the games or they'll assume that them not being able to perform certain action is a bug. For example, not being able to reactivate flight after moving between maps in Hexen (and no "Stop Flying" doesn't work for this; you need to press "Fly Up"). Once again, no-free-look players end up facing more annoyances since they won't be able to authentically move camera up and down and/or stop flying if they need to. Want to have a look up & down in a way it originally worked while playing on a gamepad? Tough luck, that's not even an option for you. Connect keyboard and mouse to your console if you can and if a version of Heretic + Hexen on that platform supports it.

I recall "Fly Up" and "Fly Down" not having any default bindings in release build, but perhaps I'm just misremembering it. I couldn't find a gameplay video of that initial version where players went to check bindings. So I'll mark this as a "citation needed" point.


Astounding Observations.

Text and ending screens in Heretic + Hexen have also been a source of great annoyance for me. Re-release decided to space out text on those screen without giving you an option to restore classic presentation and remove a "Press Fire To Continue" tip that wasn't there in original versions of games. This results in very jarring transitions where game switches to a different screen for the sake of displaying just one sentence.

Heretic Original & Re-Release (Modern & Classic Font) City of the Damned Text Screen Comparison.

Hexen Original & Re-Release (Modern & Classic Font) Seven Portals Text Screen Comparison.

As you can see, it really is just strange. I've chosen smaller resolutions for all of them not only to more easily fit multiple screens in one image, but to also present a fair comparison by leaning onto original games' resolution. I would like to also showcase endings of base Hexen & Deathkings of the Dark Citadel to highlight that text on its third part got moved up in the re-release. It should be in the bottom part of the screen in order to not cover up the chess piece of player character(s).

Hexen and DotDC Original & Re-Release (Classic & Modern Font) Ending's Third Text Screen Comparison.

Vestiges of Grandeur isn't included here since that expansion was developed exclusively for Heretic + Hexen and I still kind of want to play through it properly just to see how they handled new content for Hexen. Presented examples from re-release version mostly take the same amount of screen to display the entirety of its text in higher resolutions. The amount of text that doesn't fit when it should differ depending on resolution you've selected.

Here's an example of how much text gets moved to a separate screen for City of the Damned looks in Heretic + Hexen with 1920x1080 resolution. It's both hilarious and extremely annoying:

Heretic Re-Release City of the Damned Misplaced Text in 1920x1080 Resolution.

I doubt it has something to do with Accessibility option since Modern font is too tiny. It looks like Nightdive just didn't know that text spacing was changed for Heretic & Hexen compared to first two DOOM games. You could also argue it wasn't corrected during re-release's development for the sake of "making text more readable in its original form", ignoring how baffling the end result turned out to be (as demonstrated in all my examples). Regardless, this should've been either a setting of its own ("DOOM Text Spacing" or something) or just not be present in Heretic + Hexen altogether.

This isn't an "article" in the style of "Revised Issues & Suggestions for War1R", but I still wanted to find a way to list many examples of issues that indicated the rushed development of Heretic + Hexen. It was necessary for me to go as deep as I could for Warcraft: Remastered since nobody else have really done that, but Heretic & Hexen are in a different situation. These games are arguably more popular and there're many more people who would more easily stumble into bugs and report them than me.

For this part, I'm taking an easy and cheap way out by sharing some highlights from "Heretic + Hexen (2025 Kex Remaster) Bug Report Thread" topic from Doomworld with screenshots or videos I think would be the most amusing to acknowledge.

Some things listed here should already be fixed in Update 1 (and 2), but this list is supposed to showcase how things were in the release build:

The cherry on top comes in a form of Raven Vault being initially incomplete since there were some things Nightdive couldn't add due to apparent time constraints.

Samuel Kaiser Villarreal About Incomplete Raven Vault. Taken From X/Twitter.

You would assume that putting together Vault content would be relatively simple and quick thing to do, but apparently not. At this point, I think there shouldn't be much doubt about Heretic + Hexen going through rushed (and ultimately flawed) development cycle with less-than-ideal result for people familiar with either or both games included.

I started writing this even before Update 1 was released, but I've been slacking to a point where Update 2 was released and it's a rather small one. It did seemingly address some things mentioned in the list above (specifically, skybox glitching), incomplete Raven Vault and oddities like "Disabling vertical look will no longer cause the camera to slowly drift when using the right stick" on Nintendo Switch only and "Enemies can no longer see or use melee attack on you through polygonal objects": this one caused Korax to become active before you open his first room in Dark Crucible, for example. One of many-many examples. I think I forgot to mention this one before due to being focused on all other things. There're still issues that remain unaddressed after all this time and chances for that get lower with each passing day.


Waste of Communication.

Considering the amount of stuff and inaccuracies that I've been practically ranting about here, someone would naturally suggest to simply brings all of this to Nightdive's attention. They don't shy away from interacting with community (as I've shown in this "article" before) and that's already much better than trying to get through customer support of larger companies like Bethesda. Surely they would be glad to listen and pay attention to what I say, right?

I think it goes without saying that most people don't usually bother with reporting something unless it's very serious and not talked about at every corner. You're more likely to look if an issue you're experiencing was already reported and, if it was, breathe a sigh of relief that you don't have to do that yourself. My initial outlook on Heretic + Hexen was cautiously optimistic, so I decided to go out of my way to actually bring up some things that were on my mind at the time in hopes that I could end this re-release to reach a state where it really should've been... Unfortunately, this was some of the largest wastes of time I had the displeasure of going through and I'm about to share this miserable experience.

As a note, I've tried to save some space and stick straight to the topic. There were some interjections in my initial question dump that ultimately didn't really have any effect on exchange itself. Same is true for some screenshots later.

My Initial Heretic + Hexen Nightdive Report Part 1. Taken from Nightdive's Discord Server.
My Initial Heretic + Hexen Report Part 2. Taken from Nightdive's Discord Server.

I went with multiple questions at once as the less annoying option and all points were important. So you can kind of understand the apparent annoyance on developer's part, even if self-inflicted as he kept insisting that he's "in bed". Clearly a way to signal that he doesn't really want to have any discussions at this time, which is totally fine and I ended up playing along with it by ending the dialogue as soon as possible. I'll focus on each point:

  • Demo loops: Edward850 kept stating that all demos were broken in the original game. This is only true for Heretic and I mentioned that in "Regressive Menu & Dark Pattern" segment. Considering that demo recording and playback are still supported in Heretic + Hexen, it literally is just a matter of recording new ones for the game or utilizing Common.kpf's "vid" content for WEBM recordings of old demo loops.
    I didn't actually check all this demo stuff out before getting close to finishing this "article", so I had to add more to initial mention of demo loop problem and this part of the post in particular.
  • Gameplay Modifiers: His "contractionary" point about players reporting on this only after discovering the option itself was very baffling. It does seem a bit of a disingenuous way to dismiss that complaint, especially since my reply to that was ignored and then Update 1 added access to Gameplay Modifiers in Episode/Class selection menus (good change, but still doesn't address the core issue).
  • Automap Markers: That was my gaps of knowledge and I fully accept that. It does seem like a more reasonable alteration to the gameplay, even though I think it would've been best for this option to be automatically disabled in the highest difficulties.
  • In-Game Achievements: Only a thing in Nintendo Switch version of Heretic + Hexen and that's something I found out thanks to Edward850. It sounded like probably the easiest thing to properly implement into PC versions of re-release, but still nothing as of Update 2.
  • Hexen Cutscenes: Said "This already exists" without acknowledging that the toggle itself is about as obscure as Gameplay Modifiers.
  • Lore Texts for Hexen: Hexen 64 has an exclusive feature where loading screens include a narrative texts for the maps that you're about to enter. This nice little flair of immersion while you sit on a loading screen. Suggestion was immediately dismissed, despite me not saying a single thing about tying this to "artificially increasing load times".
  • Two Soundtrack questions: I had an entire "article" about OPL mess. I'll only say that "Already been told by 500 people" remark about FM Synth being too quiet was uncalled-for and rather passive-aggressive. Don't think I mentioned his "We only have the OPL synth that we have" quote in my soundtrack "article" because I forgot about that, not that this adds any new context. It's still either OPL2 or CQM-like mess. 
  • New Episodes & Expansions: He doesn't know, fair enough. Considering that the description for Sacrilege mod (the base for Heretic's Modifiers) directly states that "Gameplay-wise, it uses Wayfarer's Tome as its foundation, with a few additional tweaks and tricks up its sleeve", the answer for Faith Renewed is definitely "yes". It may be safe to assume that the same is true with Vestiges of Grandeur.
  • Hexen 64 Campaign: Honestly, it seems like they just don't like Hexen 64 at Nightdive. Because the "There's nothing to add" is a weird reply since it also pretty much implied to Nintendo 64's port of Quake. Texture filtering angle is a bit more understandable, but nothing stops Nightdive of taking yet another creative liberty by just ignoring that.
  • Co-op Level Select: Seven Portals hub being listed as "Winnowing Hall" in Cooperative's Level selection setting was ignored and still not fixed. 

Almost half of my questions were weirdly dismissed or (intentionally?) misinterpreted with some replies being seemingly disingenuous, which is quite discouraging. I wanted to give some benefit of a doubt to the developer in question by assuming that he's probably forced to stay in contact with the community for whatever reason and clearly against his wishes. Because it's pretty much almost always him giving any sort of reply, my subsequent reports were few and far between. Bad first impression of that developer was very unfortunate.

Still, there were more observations made by me that I tried to report. The "Welcome to the Heretic and Hexen bug reporting forum" post in "heretic-hexen-bug" channel does say "Please do not expect a direct reply to your posts. This doesn't mean they have not been seen." I think it's only partially true, but who really knows.

Heretic + Hexen Bug Report to Nightdive Studios №1. Taken from Nightdive Discord Server.

This was just (technically) a repeated report about Cooperative menu incorrectly referring to Seven Portals hub as Winnowing Hall. Still not fixed.

Heretic + Hexen Bug Report to Nightdive Studios №2. Taken from Nightdive Discord Server.

Just an attempt to bring up the soundtrack topic in constructive way since all the prior reports I've seen in their server wasn't exactly accurate and quite confrontational. The only thing that did change about current FM Synth is it stopped being too quiet.

Heretic + Hexen Bug Report to Nightdive Studios №3. Taken from Nightdive Discord Server.

My mistake with this one was also not mentioning DOOM-like text spacing as well. No mention of Deathkings of the Dark Citadel there since at the time I didn't get to it in Heretic + Hexen yet. You'll see why I didn't bother providing more details in this report later.

Heretic + Hexen Bug Report to Nightdive Studios №4. Taken from Nightdive Discord Server.

This is a weird one and feels like Nightdive cutting corners in new content implementation as opposed of having it "exposed for modding purposes". Context from new expansions should logically be tied to them specifically and not located in base game files. If someone wants to make new Faith Renewed content or use puzzle items from Vestiges of Grandeur, it would make more sense for modders to focus on them specifically.

That was even mentioned in Hexen + Heretic (Nightdive) topic on Doomworld, but brushed off with similar explanation by different user. Regardless, this just comes off as another step in Heretic + Hexen's lack of respect for the games it includes and Raven Software as it further deludes their work.

Heretic + Hexen Bug Report to Nightdive Studios №5. Taken from Nightdive Discord Server.

A double report that was also incomplete, unfortunately. Not that it really matters at this point. I forgot about skulls in Heretic's main menu and didn't check if "Shadowcaster" code works in re-release's cheat menu. None of the issues were properly addressed.

Heretic + Hexen Bug Report to Nightdive Studios №6.1. Taken from Nightdive's Discord Server.
Heretic + Hexen Bug Report to Nightdive Studios №6.2. Taken from Nightdive's Discord Server.

When Xbox App was updated for PC on September 25, 2025, Xbox ecosystem started to partially recognize the Steam version of Heretic + Hexen. If you open up Game Bar when it launched, you'll see it show re-release's achievements as if it's Microsoft Store version. You won't be able to get any of them, but play time will be counting on your Xbox profile just fine. Some games from Steam do have support for Xbox's ecosystem stuff, but it has to be manually added by developers themselves (like Halo: Master Chief Collection & Minecraft Dungeons; there's even a list of games like this on TrueAchievements).

Considering that this project was evidently rushed to release, it's very likely that Steam installation has something carried over from Microsoft Store version and it was enough for Xbox ecosystem to start recognizing it after a major update to its PC app and such. Something similarly reportedly happened even with Minecraft Legends since I was able to find this comment on Reddit where user complained about not getting Xbox achievements on Steam, but having play time counted.

This was a second reply that earned a reply from Nightdive's developer, but it wasn't much of an improvement compared to my previous encounters. Rather than actually look into the problem, I was immediately told that I was wrong and there's nothing they can do about this. You can start to see a certain pattern here: if you are to reach out to Nightdive on their Discord server about some kind of bug or oddity, you're most likely get a response from a person who seem to just love telling company's audience that they're wrong, usually with notes of passive-aggressive attitude in their responses.

Xbox & Bethesda Support Comments on My Bug Report to Nightdive Studios.

My attempts to look into this on my own didn't provide any results. As you can see, I was determined (or stubborn?) to get to the bottom of this by contacting both Xbox & Bethesda's support to see this problem looked into properly. This didn't really help, but at least my interaction with Xbox Support turned out to be a surprising highlight in this ordeal. I can't really say the same about Bethesda, but that's to be expected. At the very least, I've actually informed them both about my dialogue with Nightdive's developers and both parties agreed that this interaction wasn't great. Nightdive themselves were informed through their Support page, but (unsurprisingly) I didn't hear back from them.

What's more absurd about this is, if Edward850's The Doom Wiki page is to be believed, he's exactly the kind of person who is supposed to be able to make sense of this kind of oddity. At first I thought that he was getting overworked by acting as a stand-in for community manager, but Nightdive Studios allegedly have those. Not that I've seen them anywhere. Based on my observations, it looks like something he just likes to do on his own volition: he just likes "being right" and telling people they're wrong, even if means completely . Looking more into this uncovered something bad. Something very bad.


Discovered Rot.

My encounters weren't a separated instance. Looking slightly deeper into this led me to discovering that Edward850 has this kind of reputation on Doomworld. You can find a few replies from people commenting on his attitude. Usually in a very polite way since he's an active presence around there. It's almost as if they're doing it this way in order to avoid giving him an excuse to do this again.

xttl & Captain Keen Comment on Edward850's Attitude. Taken from Doomworld.

I was even able to find this comment from Graf Zahl, main developer of GZDoom source port, replies to Edward850 and also comments on his apparent passive-aggressive demeanor. Graf is a piece of word himself (lilith.pk3 & GZDoom's AI debacle stories show that perfectly well) and a comment like this is very ironic coming from him, but this shows that this is a long-running problem (since 2017, at least!). Besides, it takes one to know one.

Graf Zahl Replies to Edward850 and Remarking on His Attitude. Taken from Doomworld.

Let's go back to recent incidents though. You can be fortunate enough to see Edward850's attitude shining in all of its "glory" not just on Doomworld, but also in Nightdive's Discord server itself. This shouldn't be surprising, considering the recap of my own experience. Still, I would like to reassure you that other users also get similar treatment sometimes.

Quake 2 Re-Release Modding Support Discussion Part 1. Taken from Nightdive's Discord server.
Quake 2 Re-Release Modding Support Discussion Part 2. Taken from Nightdive's Discord server.

Take this example where one of Call of the Void developers shares his annoyance about having to inform interested console players that they can't play the mod because Quake 2's re-release doesn't support mods in the same way Quake's re-release does with dedicated mod browser. Edward850 immediately goes on the offensive when it wasn't even a criticism pointed towards Nightdive by Sprony, shutting down any idea of Quake 2's re-release getting more attention. All the while the modder was just venting his frustration.

While Peril reassured that he personally didn't mean to come across as negative and was further defusing the situation (good to see at one Nightdive developer being nice), one of the server's moderators had to excuse Edward850 by saying that "A lot of people interpret edward as hostile when he just answers honestly" and then gives a warning to another user who just called out Edward850's behavior. 

Player Makes a Mistake About Co-op in Blood: Fresh Supply Part 1.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord server (1,2).

Player Makes a Mistake About Co-op in Blood: Fresh Supply Part 2.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord server.

Next example shows a user making a mistake in his observations of Blood: Fresh Supply's menus. Rather than politely correct them, Edward850 strikes with very condescending attitude yet again. At this point, you can probably foresee how this dialogue goes before actually seeing it. And, once again, you can see moderator and community manager... Wait, a community manager?! Damn, Nightdive Studios actually has them! Anyway, developer's toxic outburst is played off as a joke. Again.

Both situations demonstrate that this isn't just a "one person being problematic" issue, but this reflects the culture that's been formed within Nightdive's community. Instead of encouraging Edward850 to be more polite towards other people or just stop him from talking to people as a Nightdive representative, you can see that his colleagues and server's moderators turn a blind eye to this and treat it as something funny. Not a long-standing issue that would normally be addressed. This is already concerning enough since such environment can evolve into something much worse... Well, it actually does get worse.

Quakeulf Talking To Nightdive Developers Part 1. Taken from Nightdive's Discord server (1,2,3).
Quakeulf Talking To Nightdive Developers Part 2. Taken from Nightdive's Discord server (1,2).
Quakeulf Talking To Nightdive Developers Part 3. Taken from Nightdive's Discord server (1,2).
Quakeulf Talking To Nightdive Developers Part 4. Taken from Nightdive's Discord server (1,2).

This is by far the worst case of interaction between Nightdive's representatives (developers and community manager) and the audience I've seen. A "perfect" demonstration of how toxic traits aren't limited to just one developer, but multiple people within the company and seemingly its fanbase as well since you can see some of them welcome this behavior. You can see exactly what kind of effect letting passive-aggressive and outright insulting behavior from one individual persist without question to a group of people around them.

I think it goes without saying that having a culture akin to some old school forum with elitist higher circle in a public community server of seemingly professional developer working with known companies and corporations isn't normal. That's not what they should aspire to be. You would expect employees of said company to hold themselves to a certain standard of conduct in public spaces like Discord server. Naturally, this isn't a one-off situation for Gooberman either.

Heretic + Hexen Autoaim Discussion Part 1. Taken from Nightdive's Discord Server (1,2).
Heretic + Hexen Autoaim Discussion Part 2. Taken from Nightdive's Discord Server (1,2).

You know, I do feel bad for developers like Paril and Xaser who seem to be a genuine decent people. If this is how Edward850 and GooberMan behave publicly, it makes you wonder what stays behind closed doors. Certainly nothing good, more than likely. All these examples of my personal experience and other incidents indicated a clear issue within Nightdive Studios. A problem that has to be solved. It's not about how "outsiders" behave themselves — sometimes there's nothing wrong, other times they probably could've worded some messages better. Those are just "regular people" and you need to account for that. While developers and other company representatives, as I've mentioned before, should uphold a higher standard and politely nudge audience towards engaging in healthy discourse. Not whatever the hell all those examples I've shown are.

How do you do that though? As I've mentioned before, my ticket to Nightdive Studios remained unanswered. While Bethesda & Xbox Support more-or-less acknowledged the issue in communication by Nightdive's developer, there's not much they could do. Not that these companies would even care, considering that they still partner with Limited Run Games with the awful reputation they've earned over the years ("The Truth About Limited Run Games" and "The Betrayal of Limited Run Games: What They Don't Want You To See" videos by mrixrt are one hell of a ride). If that doesn't bother them, then toxic nature of Nightdive and its community won't be a cause for concern either.

With that being said, there's one company that can and should be bothered by this: nu-Atari (a.k.a. "Atari", previously known as Infogrames), the owner of Nightdive Studios. This is their failure too. When this situation gets out of control due to lack of intervention and observation from nu-Atari, they would be the ones who would have to clean up the mess following reputational damage. I've already gone this far, so at this point I have to notify them about this, ask for an explanation as to why they let it get to this point and ask for appropriate response to make sure this doesn't grow larger.

I have received the classic responses from nu-Atari's customer support specialist about "forwarding information to the correct department", which will likely take some time. I would like to stay hopeful and assume that all two (so far?) replies I got were from an actual human being, but you can never be sure about this in current age. In any case, I did what I could and time will tell if anything comes out of it.

Additionally, I'll take inspiration from Quakeulf's incident by reaching out to Steam Support. I had System Shock: Enhanced Edition & PowerSlave Exhumed in my library for a few months now, but these discoveries destroyed any desire for me to play this re-release and remix respectively. Sometimes Steam makes exceptions to its Refund Policy and I haven't launched those games before, so I may have a chance to get my money back by highlighting communication issues at Nightdive Studios as the reason for that. If it doesn't work out in my favor, they'll be just dropped into the bottom of my backlog and even then I don't know how much I would end up enjoying these games after this mess.


Deep Dive Wind Down.

With this detour out of the way, I would like to come back to the main topic of this "article". Let's end this by looking at "Xaser Acheron on the re-release of Heretic + Hexen | Deep Dive" video by Nightdive Studios. This is an episode of their own podcast series where Xaser talks with the host about Heretic + Hexen and there're a few noteworthy details that I would like to highlight:

  • "Class-specific changes in Hexen" reiterates the idea that they just didn't know what they were doing with class changes. How differences between classes are there to bring different feel and challenge for each of them. Not realizing that Hexen just has a slower pace to its gameplay compared to Heretic & DOOM games.
  • "A wild Cleric Shield appears!" reveals that the idea itself was quickly prototyped and pitched in like a week. From the sound it, this concept made it in basically because it looked cool to people at Nightdive. Besides that, Xaser talked about his desire for a "Heretic & Hexen remaster" to "fix the Mace, the Mace has to not suck".
  • "How to decide on changes to gameplay" segment is a bit contractionary in a way how Xaser talks about them. He seemingly mentions the subjectivity of it all only to then talk about "flaws" in a very definitive way. He also talks about Frost Shards change being Edward850's suggestion... Something-something, broken clock. Good thought, jokes aside.
  • "Why they added the Hexen Chronicle" part is very interesting. Ironically enough, Xaser called them a "low effort fix of sorts" to a "problem" of gameplay variety within a whole hub. It was sponge's idea he wanted to see since day one. Xaser also sort of acknowledges that you were locked in your class choice "unless you use cheat codes", which goes back to re-release trying to hide the existence of "Shadowcaster" code.
  • "Talking about technical roadblocks" highlights the technical missteps with Heretic + Hexen. Xaser mentions that they could've made it so that Heretic and Hexen could've been separate from technical standpoint and game/expansion selection would let you go from one to another. He cites modding as a reason against this approach, saying that it would've locked out of new things they wanted to do. Naturally, it led to more bugs during testing.
  • "Bringing games up to standard for modding" brings more context for where Heretic + Hexen priorities lied. Xaser highlights how there's a lack of modding standard for both games compared to classic DOOM with this re-release serving as "Nightdive taking the charge" with introducing something new and promising to work with community for its documentation and so on.
  • "What post release going to look like" reaffirms that modding was the main focus for Heretic + Hexen. There's expressed hope for more community content specifically for re-release version, be it new maps and/or enemies & weapons.
  • "New episodes and maps" starts off focusing more on Vestiges of Grandeur and how it utilizes Hexen's Hub system. While Wayfarer's Tomb licensing and Kaiser's work on Faith Renewed do get mentioned, Xaser fails to note how changes for remixing Heretic maps themselves came from his own Sacrilege mod that he was working on prior.
  • "New monsters" reveals that originally Nightdive Studios wanted to do new expansion only for Heretic only for "two of the fastest level designers in the fricking universe", as Xaser puts it, expressed their desire to work on new content for each game and he let them do it.
  • "Proudest achievement on the project" has a part where Xaser once more says that "yeah, these changes won't be for everyone and you can switch them off" and how he wanted to "update/polish" Heretic & Hexen content for a long time. "I'm just floored that not only did I get the chance to do it, I got a chance to do officially for a re-release. What? Thanks, guys. What the hell?" Yet he also jokes how he would rather by shy about this than be like "Look at how awesome my version of the game is!"

Despite my disagreements with some of his perspective, I'm still glad to see that Xaser appears to be mostly chill person. It does look like his involvement with Heretic + Hexen got a bit into his head with how he sounded not as self-aware as in his notes for Sacrilege, but at the end it's just a modder who got to do something on an official capacity and there's a natural excitement that comes with it.

All of this just shows that the main goal of Heretic + Hexen was another attempt of capturing the magic of Quake 2's re-release where it resulted in a major resurgence of that game's modding community. The problem with that is Quake 2 situation was organic. ID24 standard, based on licensed code from "Rum and Raisin Doom" source port, that came with DOOM + DOOM 2 didn't have as smooth of an introduction with some community members being skeptical about the practice itself (it's a whole other thing I won't be getting into) and the standard itself seemingly not having a finalized spec to this very day.

That's not a surprise when Nightdive clearly prioritizes working on new commercial releases. How can you expect a modding standard to fully develop and gain traction when people working on it get distracted by developer other re-releases and remasters? To be fair to Heretic + Hexen specifically, its patches saw some more additions made to EXDEFS and other modding functions of the re-release.

With that being said, it would've been much better if Nightdive just focused on delivering proper vanilla experience and uplifting existing & not-so-popular modding solutions for Heretic & Hexen instead of trying something completely new like this, After all, Heretic + Hexen is the first proper re-release of both games since its initial release and porting to fifth generation of consoles. DOOM & DOOM 2 had plenty of re-releases on PC (Doom Classic in Doom 3: BFG Edition & Classic Unity port), so diving into modding side of things was kind of earned in this case. Heretic + Hexen should've been less ambitious since its job was to properly introduce new audiences into these classic games and it failed at that.


Conclusion.

I know how cliché this is going to sound, but writing this "article" wasn't fun. It was more like getting a huge weight off my chest and being completely exhausted by everything covered in here. This only reinforces my conclusion that indie classic/retro FPS scene as a whole is very toxic, dishonest and unpleasant environment to be in (with some heartwarming exceptions, but they're few and far between) if you look deep enough into it. 

From current leadership of 3D Realms that refused to learn from mistakes of their predecessors to a point where it caused a row of rocky releases and Embracer Group layoffs & companies like nu-Apogee acquiring legacy branding and rights to classic games to further capitalize on nostalgia to small situations like deceptions and harassment by MannyCalavera12 (as seen in this Google Doc, this post in "Cancelled 1990s DooM movie. What could have been. It had a Spider mastermind and Cyberdemon." topic from Doomworld and this X/Twitter thread by Jason Smith, Cultic developer; if you feel like wasting your time on this) who is/was involved in various FPS modding projects and Chemical-Burn game. Underneath seemingly friendly and welcoming environment you'll get typical drama poison that rots your brain and tires you to no end. Just pick off specific games that peaked your interest and don't engage with these circles more than you need to.

Rather than focusing on ensuring the first proper re-release for games included, rushed development cycle of Heretic + Hexen was used to satisfy the ambition of Nightdive Studios developers to kick-off another modding resurgence. Vanilla gameplay and modding are often at odds with each other and pushing further the latter could lead to damaging the first one. You can maintain a certain balance (as seen with something like Warcraft 3), but it takes a certain approach. However, the issue isn't really in "this re-release is too fancy in some areas". No. The problem comes from Nightdive neglecting and being intentionally hidden some original elements in the re-release in a way that does a disservice to work of people who were in Raven Software and worked on Heretic & Hexen. Who knows, maybe in 5-6 years there will be another re-release that fixes these mistakes.

After this, I'm hoping to finish an "article" on Blood: Refreshed Supply before it releases because there's a number of sketchy things surrounding it that are worth highlighting as well. Once I get that out of the way, it would be time to leave all that mess behind and spend my free time on something positive like clearing up my Steam backlog and maybe writing more posts here and there. I haven't decided on that just yet.

My last notes would be about one of my distractions that delayed this post. "Notes for Heretic + Hexen Achievements" is my attempt at writing a guide for Heretic + Hexen with a goal of giving players general directions towards completing achievements for this re-release. It didn't get that much attention from Steam users, but I'm still satisfied with how this guide turned out. An enjoyable way to pass the time and find something good in an otherwise unsatisfactory situation.

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