Fantasy shooters that still pack a punch
By Paul Hunter
Thirty years later, two of Bethesda's best first-person shooters from the 90s are back in one glorious remastered package. Heretic + Hexen delivers updated versions of these classic fantasy shooters, with Nightdive Studios leading the project, while Raven Software created the originals, and Bethesda Softworks brought them to market.
The collection includes both games, their expansions, and two brand-new episodes. Titled Heretic: Faith Renewed and Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur, the new additions expand the campaign content while keeping the core experience intact.
Quality-of-life features are front and centre in these remasters. Maps have been updated, controls have been fine-tuned, and accessibility settings let you tweak the games to your liking. There's also a fresh new audio score, and multiplayer is back, supporting split-screen and online matches with a wide library of campaign and deathmatch maps.
Extras include the Raven Vault, which offers behind-the-scenes material, and official mod support for community creativity.
With so much content and thoughtful updates, is this now the best way to play these spell-casting shooters? Let’s find out!
Being shooters from the 90s, these two classics tell their stories the old-school way. You get a quick setup, and then it’s straight to business. The newly added chapters fit right in with the same no-nonsense style.
Heretic keeps things simple and punchy. You are Corvus, an elf set on revenge after the Serpent Riders—D'Sparil, Korax and Eidolon—possess the seven kings of Parthoris. With the kings' armies now corrupted, you must cut through the undead hordes, and close a foul portal to prevent more demonic infestations.
Hexen is set in the same universe, but moves the action to Cronos after D’Sparil defeat in Heretic, and you face Korax, the second Serpent Rider. You pick one of three heroes and set out across elemental dungeons, a wild expanse, a mountainside seminary, a vast castle and finally a necropolis, with the hub-based maps tying theose locations together. Each of the three classes brings its own approach, which encourages repeat runs.
Together, Heretic and Hexen stick to a focused blueprint. Short intros set the scene, the world sells the conflict, and the action carries it home. The added chapters respect that design, so these stories are just as lean and in tune with their roots.
Turning our attention to gameplay, Heretic remains focused on fast combat but benefits from modern tuning. Nightdive lowered some enemy durability to stop fights from dragging. Control upgrades, including gyro aiming on PS5, help increase accuracy during hectic encounters.
Hexen emphasises class-based combat. Fighter, Cleric and Mage each change your tactic and survivability. The remaster adds the option to change class mid-play via terminals, which lets you optimize your class based on the challenge at hand, all without restarting a campaign. Items can have different effects depending on the chosen class, like the green potion Flechette that acts as a grenade for the Fighter class, while it creats a green poison cloud as a Cleric, adding tons of strategic depth. Hexen’s hub-based maps remain central to progression, while optional hints can cut down on blind backtracking.
Nightdive has included a cheat code menu where you can alter many differtent elements, such as reducing the enemy toughness or even giving yourself god-like powers.
Multiplayer has been included and supports both deathmatch and co-operative modes. Local split-screen is supported as well, and online cross-platform deathmatch supports up to 16 players. During my review period, the online multiplayer worked great for the most part, with only the occasional judder when matched with players having unstable connections.
Nightdive treated both games to clear technical updates while keeping their original look. You get toggles for widescreen or 4:3 aspect ratios, multiple resolution-scaling options, and a handful of crosshair designs. Playing on the PS5 Pro rendered the graphics in 4K resolution and a steady 60fps, but framerate can go as high as 120fps with support TVs.
Heretic’s visuals benefit from subtle polish. Textures and lighting feel cleaner while the original style remains intact. The audio setup is flexible: switch between the classic soundtrack and a remixed score from Andrew Hulshult. I kept the remix on and found it added punch to combat without drowning out the old-school sound effects. Hexen shows similar care with nice graphical updates, plus new map markers and waypoints help you plot a course through the interconnected areas.
Both titles now have a Raven Vault that brings concept art, texture sheets and enemy designs that give context to what you see on screen. These also both support community modding, offering new ways to play and adding replay value.
Overall, the presentation respects the source while giving you a nice range of modern choices to shape how the games look and sound.
Final Score: 9/10 - Amazing
Developer: Nightdive Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Modes: Single-player
A key was provided by the publisher.
By Paul Hunter
Thirty years later, two of Bethesda's best first-person shooters from the 90s are back in one glorious remastered package. Heretic + Hexen delivers updated versions of these classic fantasy shooters, with Nightdive Studios leading the project, while Raven Software created the originals, and Bethesda Softworks brought them to market.
The collection includes both games, their expansions, and two brand-new episodes. Titled Heretic: Faith Renewed and Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur, the new additions expand the campaign content while keeping the core experience intact.
Quality-of-life features are front and centre in these remasters. Maps have been updated, controls have been fine-tuned, and accessibility settings let you tweak the games to your liking. There's also a fresh new audio score, and multiplayer is back, supporting split-screen and online matches with a wide library of campaign and deathmatch maps.
Extras include the Raven Vault, which offers behind-the-scenes material, and official mod support for community creativity.
With so much content and thoughtful updates, is this now the best way to play these spell-casting shooters? Let’s find out!
Being shooters from the 90s, these two classics tell their stories the old-school way. You get a quick setup, and then it’s straight to business. The newly added chapters fit right in with the same no-nonsense style.
Heretic keeps things simple and punchy. You are Corvus, an elf set on revenge after the Serpent Riders—D'Sparil, Korax and Eidolon—possess the seven kings of Parthoris. With the kings' armies now corrupted, you must cut through the undead hordes, and close a foul portal to prevent more demonic infestations.
Hexen is set in the same universe, but moves the action to Cronos after D’Sparil defeat in Heretic, and you face Korax, the second Serpent Rider. You pick one of three heroes and set out across elemental dungeons, a wild expanse, a mountainside seminary, a vast castle and finally a necropolis, with the hub-based maps tying theose locations together. Each of the three classes brings its own approach, which encourages repeat runs.
Together, Heretic and Hexen stick to a focused blueprint. Short intros set the scene, the world sells the conflict, and the action carries it home. The added chapters respect that design, so these stories are just as lean and in tune with their roots.
Turning our attention to gameplay, Heretic remains focused on fast combat but benefits from modern tuning. Nightdive lowered some enemy durability to stop fights from dragging. Control upgrades, including gyro aiming on PS5, help increase accuracy during hectic encounters.
Hexen emphasises class-based combat. Fighter, Cleric and Mage each change your tactic and survivability. The remaster adds the option to change class mid-play via terminals, which lets you optimize your class based on the challenge at hand, all without restarting a campaign. Items can have different effects depending on the chosen class, like the green potion Flechette that acts as a grenade for the Fighter class, while it creats a green poison cloud as a Cleric, adding tons of strategic depth. Hexen’s hub-based maps remain central to progression, while optional hints can cut down on blind backtracking.
Nightdive has included a cheat code menu where you can alter many differtent elements, such as reducing the enemy toughness or even giving yourself god-like powers.
Multiplayer has been included and supports both deathmatch and co-operative modes. Local split-screen is supported as well, and online cross-platform deathmatch supports up to 16 players. During my review period, the online multiplayer worked great for the most part, with only the occasional judder when matched with players having unstable connections.
Nightdive treated both games to clear technical updates while keeping their original look. You get toggles for widescreen or 4:3 aspect ratios, multiple resolution-scaling options, and a handful of crosshair designs. Playing on the PS5 Pro rendered the graphics in 4K resolution and a steady 60fps, but framerate can go as high as 120fps with support TVs.
Heretic’s visuals benefit from subtle polish. Textures and lighting feel cleaner while the original style remains intact. The audio setup is flexible: switch between the classic soundtrack and a remixed score from Andrew Hulshult. I kept the remix on and found it added punch to combat without drowning out the old-school sound effects. Hexen shows similar care with nice graphical updates, plus new map markers and waypoints help you plot a course through the interconnected areas.
Both titles now have a Raven Vault that brings concept art, texture sheets and enemy designs that give context to what you see on screen. These also both support community modding, offering new ways to play and adding replay value.
Overall, the presentation respects the source while giving you a nice range of modern choices to shape how the games look and sound.
The Verdict
Nightdive’s bundle brings both fantasy shooters back with care and plenty of content. You get the original campaigns, their expansions and two extra chapters, plus modern touches like save/load, waypoints, gyro aiming and accessibility options. Heretic plays smoother thanks to tuned enemy resilience; Hexen rewards class choice and now even lets you swap mid-run. Visuals and audio both get polished, with enhanced light and textures, plus a remixed soundtrack with more bass. Multiplayer and split-screen boost replay, as does the modding support. Overall, this is a strong, faithful remaster that retro FPS fans should not miss.Final Score: 9/10 - Amazing
Heretic + Hexen details
Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, PS4, Nintendo SwitchDeveloper: Nightdive Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Modes: Single-player
A key was provided by the publisher.