Heretic: DOOM With Elves And Wands

Heretic: a thin-veiled DOOM clone? is printed as a provoking heading on multiple game review magazines of 1994. One of Raven Software’s first games is undoubtedly firmly entrenched in DOOM’s legacy: it’s using the same engine, its weapons are (a bit too) heavily inspired on DOOM, and the gameplay remains largely the same. But let me ask you this: is riding on the wave of one of the best shooters of all time a bad thing? I don’t think so. So grab your magic wands and cast a Wingardium Leviosa—wait, wrong universe, sorry.

In Heretic, you’re not an anonymous DOOM Guy but a named Elvish warrior called Corvus that is bound to fight undead minions of the Serpent Riders who destroyed… a kingdom? Stuff? It’s still a shooter and the story is still very minimal: the name Corvus is revealed in Heretic II and in the original one I played we’re only beating up the first of the three Riders called D’Sparil. Not that anything like that really matters in a DOOM engine: here’s a weapon, there are the enemies, shoot to kill, collect keys, find the exit switch. We’re still in the early nineties here when it comes to shooting gameplay.

Speaking of weapons, instead of your quintessential (shot)gun, Corvus is equipped with various kinds of staves and wands—that, for the lack of a better imagination, also simply fire projectiles. One of the things I do like about Heretic is the absence of hit-scanning: every projectile can be dodged, including the ones we fire off ourselves.

On the other hand, one of the things I didn’t really like in Medieval DOOM was the underwhelming array of weapons. The shotgun—oh, I’m sorry, Ethereal Crossbow¹—was still my most-used one and just as effective, but the Dragon Claw that replaces the chain gun felt like a cheap toy that went pew pew pew, and while the Hellstaff (plasma gun) looks cool and fires off projectiles at a rapid rate, they don’t do a lot or enemies seem a bit too spongy compared to DOOM.

The BFG is gone, and the semi-secret weapon we’ve got here instead is a wimp: a lot of noise but not very effective. Still, thanks to the new inventory system, Corvus can pick up and activate Tomes of Power when in dire need of more firepower. This basically transforms each weapon into a superhero variant: the crossbow fires off three big shots, the Hellstaff drops acid rain to form a juicy amount of splash damage, the Phoenix rod (rocket launcher) becomes a devastating flamethrower, … That’s not just a neat effect but can completely change the tides of battle, especially with those life-leeching gauntlets (chainsaw)!

In DOOM, every item or power-up you “step into” is activated/consumed. In Heretic, besides the basic health vials and shields (armour), you pick it up instead and choose yourself when to use it. One of those trinkets includes the ability to fly, which is very cool although well within the limits of the engine. It’ll surely get you out of a nasty situation or help avoid massive amounts of damage when exploring lava pits hunting for secrets. Oh, and you can pick up and throw a magically enchanted egg that transforms enemies into chickens to crush them. That’s right, Duke 3D’s shrink ray came two years later! Boss enemies are of course immune, the rest is probably lacto-ovo vegetarian.

Heretic introduced more little things to the DOOM engine besides the fly hack, such as more dynamic lightning (that doesn’t feel special if you play using a modern source port) and distant sound effects to up the creepy ante. Ringing town hall bells, water dripping somewhere in a dark tunnel, that kind of thing. It’s a small change but helps create an immersive feel. Enemies such as the annoying and dangerous Disciples of D’Sparil taunt you and typical DOOM-like grunts of all sorts of beasts are all here as well.

If you’re looking for classic DOOM-like jump-scares, this isn’t the game for you, but I’d definitely call Heretic creepy. The music is a big part of what makes or breaks the atmosphere and I’m happy to say that I love Kevin Schilder’s soundtrack. The first level of the first episode, the docks, starts out very promising: listen for yourself. It’s no DOOM metal, but to me, that’s an advantage. Heretic is supposed to give off creepy medieval churchy vibes, not sci-fi techno ones.

The level design—the core of a game like this besides the shooting mechanics—is very good as well. I played the original three episodes that were released in 1994 but did so with GOG’s Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, the retail version that was released in 1996 with two additional episodes. I heard from fellow DOS Game Club members that the first half of episode 4 has its problems, so I’m glad I stopped at 3.

You still have to key-hunt and button-press your way out of every level, but luckily it’s not a Wolf3D-esque maze and some of the levels came together in very interesting ways: some levels represent outside and cave-like villages with a lot of buildings, coming with neat layouts and use height well to section off parts. Other levels include backtracking while keyhunting, suddenly opening up archways that weren’t there before only to come back at the beginning where the exit was all along.

If you’re interested in playing Heretic in contemporary 2024, there are better options besides the original MS-DOS version. I tried my hand at the game on vintage hardware but honestly the keyboard only or “new” keyboard + mouse controls were just too slow, even with the mouse sensitivity yanked up to the max. I didn’t mind the limited field of view, but of course since GZDoom exists, loading up a .WAD file on a modern PC became a piece of cake: all kinds of cool extras (high resolution, smooth rendering options, proper mouse look and faster gameplay, …) are baked right into that cake. All screenshots except the first one were taken on macOS with GZDoom (note the increased resolution on the lower HUD).

Is Heretic worth it if you’ve played DOOM to death? Yes. Is Heretic worth it if you’re looking for something else besides DOOM gameplay? No. I liked it more than the recent Project Warlock by a tiny margin so it deserves Jefklak’s Great label just like the 1997 Outlaws that also had its own problems but still ended up on top.

Just be sure to activate that Tome of Power on time.