Night Dive Drops Heretic + Hexen Enhanced Upgrades on PC / Consoles - $14.99 (or free if you already owned these)

I Love It Chefs Kiss GIF by Magic: The Gathering


Heretic 2 Nightdive?
 
they have included the intro from the saturn/psx versions but didnt bother to include the higher quality music from those versions.
i hope they patch those in ASAP.
 
Fuck me, I have the original big box's of these titles but wish Gamepass would slow down backlog is truely for life.
 
freemandos said:
I haven't tried yet, but looks like there are rebalance changes. I think they're optional though.
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Yeah all the new stuff is optional. I think both the weapon rebalances and revamped maps are taken from community mods, The Wayfarer's Tome and Sacrilege respectively.

It's cool that they included those but I don't like they being ON by default, will give the wrong impression to new players.
 
Holy shit Nightdive are unstoppable this year ! I'm already playing Killing Time and System Shock 2 and you drop this ??? Fuckin' hell
 
TintoConCasera said:
Yeah all the new stuff is optional. I think both the weapon rebalances and revamped maps are taken from community mods, The Wayfarer's Tome and Sacrilege respectively.

It's cool that they included those but I don't like they being ON by default, will give the wrong impression to new players.
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I'm watching the DF video on the collection and I dont like with "rebalanced" weapons you can now kill most lesser enemies with one crossbow shot. This game isn't Doom and it doesn't need to be.
 
Futaleufu said:
I'm watching the DF video on the collection and I dont like with "rebalanced" weapons you can now kill most lesser enemies with one crossbow shot. This game isn't Doom and it doesn't need to be.
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Did you miss the part where it's a toggle and that you can play with the originals if you want?
 
Played through some of the first Episode of Heretic. Like fine fucking wine. Loving the balance tweaks too, speeds up the whole game in a good way. Absolutely the right call there.

Night Dive are one Deus Ex remaster away from legitimate God-tier status.
 
DF video said the enhancements like the changed level designs/graphics are optional but where are the options located, I skimmed a bit and didn't see anything in gameplay settings or different things to toggle when starting a new game or whatever, I just saw the music and map notes settings.

Unless they meant having the option to run the DOS version, which would be silly... I guess I'll just have to trust Night Dive in that they've done meaningful, tasteful and fitting improvements overall, similar to what they did for Powerslave, and not worry about being unable to turn them all off 🤷‍♂️
 
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Alexios said:
DF video said the enhancements like the changed level designs/graphics are optional but where are the options located, I skimmed a bit and didn't see anything in gameplay settings or different things to toggle when starting a new game or whatever, I just saw the music and map notes settings.

Unless they meant having the option to run the DOS version, which would be silly... I guess I'll just have to trust Night Dive in that they've done meaningful, tasteful and fitting improvements overall, similar to what they did for Powerslave, and not worry about being unable to turn them all off 🤷‍♂️
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Aside from not giving us high enough resolution textures in Quake I (it is all about giving us the feel of how we remember the games not how they were… in my child memories the stained glass windows were sharper) and adding indoors distance fog in Quake I and Quake II, I have always kept their defaults and liked them :).

They went through the trouble of replicating N64's 3-taps bilinear filtering in DOOM 64 too. They kick ass!
 
For 15 euros, an absolute no-brainer and as a grumpy old boomer, I'll have more fun with this than with all the exclusives that have come out this generation.
 
Haven't yet bought it yet (But i do own them physically), as DoomWiki editor, we have been plunging away at the new release. Turns out it contains some technical extras much like Doom + Doom II was.

EXDEFS

EXDEFS is a WAD lump introduced in Heretic + Hexen. It is used both in Heretic: Faith Renewed and Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur to enable the changes seen in these mapsets, such as new weapons and enemies, as well as to offer the optional gameplay update and rebalance offered in Heretic and Hexen.
doomwiki.org doomwiki.org
doomwiki.org

Heretic: Faith Renewed

Heretic: Faith Renewed is an EXDEFS-compatible episode. It features two new enemies, a new weapon, and new textures.
doomwiki.org doomwiki.org
doomwiki.org

Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur

Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur is an EXDEFS-compatible hub.
doomwiki.org doomwiki.org

Also check the mod uploader for [Bethesda Edition] uploads. These are community uploads that often restore extra maps, new niceties and ensure the maps actually work with the KEX port, as opposed to WeedGoku69 who does a random upload and then complains it sucks.
 
Sledge said:
When you start a new game. They're not available to tweak under the regular options, no.
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Thanks, I was sure I checked but I missed that extra tab hotkey indicator on the difficulty select screen taking you to extra options, bit weird that's the only, er, indication for those options and it's not a clickable item anywhere either.
 
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ZehDon said:
Played through some of the first Episode of Heretic. Like fine fucking wine. Loving the balance tweaks too, speeds up the whole game in a good way. Absolutely the right call there.

Night Dive are one Deus Ex remaster away from legitimate God-tier status.
Click to expand...
Well that is about as good as we would get in terms of revitalising the Deus Ex franchise, as we know Adam Jensen isn't about to comeback anytime soon...
 
Well, that parry-then-critical-hit Cleric thing is pretty cool, but I'm a bit miffed the other classes didn't get a similar treatment for their starting weapons. I mean, Parias needed that, sure, cause that mace was lame, but I feel like the other guys could use some oomph too. The shield's just so good.
 
Enjoying Heretic a lot so far. Never played much more than a few minutes of these games over the years for whatever reason.

I think I was all the way to "The Graveyard" level before I looked into the controls to figure out how to use items. I thought they were just power ups that seemed to do nothing.. but nope, lol..
 
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Heretic level design is A+. Never boring, never shits the bed like Doom 2.

Then Hexen be like
>flip switch
>door opens on the other side of the planet
 
SirKicksalot said:
Heretic level design is A+. Never boring, never shits the bed like Doom 2.

Then Hexen be like
>flip switch
>door opens on the other side of the planet
Click to expand...
"One sixth of the puzzle has been solved."

I love it. I have markers turned off on the minimap because this is something related to modern audiences who would rather quit playing a game than search for one particular switch across four different levels for two hours straight.
 
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ZehDon said:
Played through some of the first Episode of Heretic. Like fine fucking wine. Loving the balance tweaks too, speeds up the whole game in a good way. Absolutely the right call there.

Night Dive are one Deus Ex remaster away from legitimate God-tier status.
Click to expand...
Oh hell yea. They have to do Deus Ex. That would be amazing.
 
Dazraell said:
Yeah, I'm curious of it as well. There was some rumblings of Quake 3 and Doom 64 (SteamDB edits and ESRB rating for new platforms it didn't launched). I'm glad the other thing isn't a case as it already has a remaster. I was also crossing my fingers for them to finally put Wolfenstein 2009 back on Steam again but it was always a long shot lol
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Wolfenstein 2009 was on steam at one point? I never seen it there. I owned it at one time on ps3, but never finished it. I wanted to replay it on PC but not on any store. Did it bomb that bad that they don't even sell it. Or one of those weird issues similar to no one lives forever where we never get a re-release?
 
blacktout said:
Yeah, I assume it'll max out at 720p instead of 1080p in handheld mode, and I mostly play retro games handheld.
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I have it on my switch oled as my switch 2 is filled already. It plays great on the OG. Changing the resolution settings doesn't seem to change anything (maybe a touch more pixel shimmer and aliasing) I notice on the switch except for the wide-screen toggle. It may be changing but the upscaler from 240p and the already pixelation isn't noticeable on small screen. More likely my brain is playing tricks on me and nothing is changing.
 
Shadowstar39 said:
Wolfenstein 2009 was on steam at one point? I never seen it there. I owned it at one time on ps3, but never finished it. I wanted to replay it on PC but not on any store. Did it bomb that bad that they don't even sell it. Or one of those weird issues similar to no one lives forever where we never get a re-release?
Click to expand...
Yeah, it was on Steam when the game has launched, but was later delisted. Same thing happened with Prey (the original one from 2006) and if I remember correctly with Raven's Singularity. That last one reappeared later on Steam though

Wolf 2009 was a game that had some identity problems (it tried to be a semi sequel to Return to Castle but didn't felt like it, and tried to emulate some of the ideas from CoD by incorporating more "modern" trends but didn't felt like CoD either), but I actually enjoyed its hub-based structure and city setting. Not my favorite Wolf by any means, but honestly I would love to replay it

To my understanding there has been some issues tied to game rights which were split between id and Activision. With all of them being a part of Microsoft now, this technically is no longer an issue. There are some movements on SteamDB suggesting it may come back (private branch for testing, frequent page updates, recent Steam Deck compatibility test, etc), but nothing that implies it's coming soon whatsoever
 
Goalus said:
"One sixth of the puzzle has been solved."

I love it. I have markers turned off on the minimap because this is something related to modern audiences who would rather quit playing a game than search for one particular switch across four different levels for two hours straight.
Click to expand...

Hexen II is even worse on that department, like, the game has no secrets, but switches and key items that are mandatory to go further in the game are so well hidden that they could be considered as secrets lol. But I loved it anyway, atmosphere and puzzles were great IMO.
 
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Dazraell said:
Yeah, it was on Steam when the game has launched, but was later delisted. Same thing happened with Prey (the original one from 2006) and if I remember correctly with Raven's Singularity. That last one reappeared later on Steam though

Wolf 2009 was a game that had some identity problems (it tried to be a semi sequel to Return to Castle but didn't felt like it, and tried to emulate some of the ideas from CoD by incorporating more "modern" trends but didn't felt like CoD either), but I actually enjoyed its hub-based structure and city setting. Not my favorite Wolf by any means, but honestly I would love to replay it

To my understanding there has been some issues tied to game rights which were split between id and Activision. With all of them being a part of Microsoft now, this technically is no longer an issue. There are some movements on SteamDB suggesting it may come back (private branch for testing, frequent page updates, recent Steam Deck compatibility test, etc), but nothing that implies it's coming soon whatsoever
Click to expand...
I played a bit of this on PS3 earlier this year and I feel like it aged pretty well. Release this on modern platforms at 4K60 and I think people would probably appreciate it more now than they did back then since the genre was really over saturated around 2009. If they can also get the multiplayer working that would be awesome, it was absolutely fucked on release and still barely works now.
 
SirKicksalot said:
Heretic level design is A+. Never boring, never shits the bed like Doom 2.

Then Hexen be like
>flip switch
>door opens on the other side of the planet
Click to expand...
As long as you are paying attention it's not that hard to figure out where to go next.
 
emivita said:
Hexen II is even worse on that department, like, the game has no secrets, but switches and key items that are mandatory to go further in the game are so well hidden that they could be considered as secrets lol. But I loved it anyway, atmosphere and puzzles were great IMO.
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I never made it past the Zodiac wheel in the Egypt episode (which is the second out of four episodes in Hexen 2) back in the day. I refuse to use guides, and I hope to get a chance to play Hexen 2 and take on this challenge again (i.e. I hope it gets a similar remaster release on consoles).

Edit:
Regarding Hexen 2, I clearly remember that magical moment in the Blackmarsh episode when I approached the castle, crossed the drawbridge, and looked at the water in the moat, to then wander inside the castle with all its intricately detailed rooms and furniture. id's engine in Raven's hands was something else back then.
 
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Ben87fr said:
Holy shit Nightdive are unstoppable this year ! I'm already playing Killing Time and System Shock 2 and you drop this ??? Fuckin' hell
Click to expand...

They also put out The Thing remastered late last year, such a good under-rated game and a fantastic conversion.
 
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