Instead of being first person shooter, Heretic II was a third person action game involving shooting and lot of jumping. Heretic II was infact the black sheep of the whole Heretic-Hexen series. But id Software proved their Quake 2 engine for this game and the game itself was this time published by Activision. But Heretic II wasn't published by id Software, that had published Heretic 1 and both Hexen-games. Heretic II was developed by Raven software that made the previous game and both Hexen-games too. Heretic did get it's own real sequel too in 1998 when Heretic II was released for PC.

In fact Hexen was originally supposed to be second expansion for Heretic, but it was made to be it's own standalone game as it was too different to Heretic. Hexen-games didn't follow the story of Heretic, but were based on the same universe and were very similar to Heretic. Heretic didn't become as big hit as Doom though, but it did get it's own expansion and also got a spiritular sequel Hexen in 1995, which got it's own sequel Hexen II in 1997. Heretic was also the first fps that included ambient noises in the background to deepen the atmosphere and create even more creepy feeling than Doom.

There were also water turrents that can draq the player. Among these new features Heretic also included more realistic water-effects when the player drops in the water, some water splashes around. This item inventory became very common in almost every old first person shooters ever since, for example in games like Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Redneck Rampage, and Quake 2. It also featured power-ups and items that were able to activate from the inventory whenever the player wanted, not immediately just like in Doom. It used Doom's game engine and that's why it was really similar to Doom, except with a fantasy-setting, telling the story of an elf mage Corvus (though his name wasn't revealed until the sequel Heretic II, in this first game he was only known as 'Heretic', because his race was judged being heretics by the forces of evil that invaded their world), on a mission to destroy the serpent rider D'Spair who had invated his world.Įven though Heretic was very similar to Doom, it was innovative as well as it was the first fps-game that featured the ability to look up and down and fly. Heretic was a first person shooter made by Raven software and published by id Software (the makers of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom) for ms-dos back in 1994.

Since most of you maybe don't recognize this elf mage and don't know these games, I should explain a little. This is a fan art of Corvus, the main character of the games Heretic and Heretic II made by Raven software.

Corvus heretic