About
Hexen: Beyond Heretic is a 1995 first-person shooter developed by Raven Software and published by id Software for MS-DOS, the sequel to Heretic and the second game in the "Serpent Riders" trilogy that concluded with Hexen II. HHexen is a source port of Hexen maintained by the Hammer of Thyrion (Hexen II) team, continuing Dan Olson's original Hacked Hexen to keep it running on modern *nix systems. It requires the player's own Hexen WAD data file, supports both OpenGL and software rendering builds, and adds a transparent automap, SDL/SDL_mixer audio with custom music support, and optional support for the Deathkings of the Dark Citadel expansion.
How it differs from the original
It includes an unofficial fourth playable class, the Assassin (originally from Hexen II), which is disabled by default in the precompiled binaries and must be explicitly enabled at compile time.
Getting started
To play, place the Hexen WAD file in the same directory as the compiled binary and run it; the Deathkings of the Dark Citadel expansion can be added by placing its WAD file alongside and passing it as a command-line argument, with a help flag listing other available switches.
Known limitations
- compatibility: Saved games and recorded demos from different wad versions are not compatible.
- compatibility: The user-created 4th class Assassin is not quite finished and disabled by default.
Additional notes
- Known issue
- Saved games and demo recordings are not compatible across different WAD file versions (1.0 vs. 1.1), and older saves from big-endian systems may not carry over correctly.