Forgotten FPS sequel Heretic 2 gets a 'reverse-engineered sourceport' that fixes bugs, improves the framerate and adds 'lots of cosmetic improvements'
Classic boomer shooters Heretic + Hexen received a lavish overhaul courtesy of Nightdive Studios last year, making these classics of the 2.5D FPS era much more accessible on PC. Playing the sequels to Raven Software's early shooters is not so straightforward, however. Hexen 2 is available to buy on Steam in its original, unvarnished form, but the only way to play Heretic 2 is to summon an evil demon and sell your soul for a boxed copy.
This is a shame, because Heretic 2 is the most unusual entry in the whole Heretic/Hexen coven. The sequel breaks rank with all the others by being a third-person action adventure rather than a dedicated FPS. Released in 1998, it received decent reviews at the time, praised for its large, complex level design and grisly 3D action.
There is some good news for those who happen to own a copy of Heretic 2 though. There is now a way to make it easier to play on a modern PC. A programmer who goes by MaxEd on Github has created a "reverse-engineered sourceport" for Raven's fantasy blaster, which is pretty much a remaster in all but name.
Dubbed Heretic2R, the sourceport introduces a bunch of new technical features to the elf wizard Corvus' second adventure. For starters, it adds widescreen support with automatic HUD scaling, and unlocks the framerate to a theoretical maximum of 1,000 FPS.
On top of this, Heretic 2R ensures that in-game special effects update at the appropriate rendering framerate, improves map loading times, and makes "lots of cosmetic improvements" so that "the game plays as you remember it, not as it actually played". Which sounds very remaster-y to me.
Naturally, you need the original Heretic 2 game data in order to run the sourceport, specifically a copy updated to version 1.06. I can't help you with finding a copy of the base game, but the patch is available via PCGamingWiki. Once you've got the right version, you can either overwrite the Heretic 2 binaries with their Heretic2R equivalents, or copy the Heretic2\base folder to the Heretic2R folder (though without the .dll files).
The big question, of course, is whether or not we're likely to see Heretic 2 get a rerelease at any point. At the time of their respective releases, Heretic 2 and Hexen 2 had different publishers (the former Activision, the latter id Software). But since both companies are now owned by Microsoft, a follow-up to Nightdive's double-barrelled release of the original games isn't out of the question. If it does happen, we'll likely find out about it at QuakeCon, as that's when Nightdive has announced all its other id Software-related remasters, like Quake, Quake 2, and the first two Doom games.
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