Heretic II

About Heretic II

Heretic II (1998) is Raven Software's third-person fantasy action game on the Quake II engine, in which the elf Corvus fights a plague of madness, a critically liked but commercially failed departure from the first-person series.

Heretic II in Depth

Corvus, hero of the first Heretic, returns from banishment to find that a mysterious plague has swept Parthoris, driving mad those it does not kill. Attacked and infected in his hometown of Silverspring, he is protected only because he carries one of the Tomes of Power, and must find a cure before he succumbs. His journey takes him through the city and swamps, a jungle palace, a desert canyon, an insect hive and dark mines to a mountain castle, where the ancient Seraph Morcalavin, seeking immortality with a false tome, has gone insane and created the plague; Corvus swaps in his real tome, curing Morcalavin and ending the plague.

Unlike the series' earlier first-person games, Corvus is controlled from a camera behind him. He combines melee and ranged attacks, with three weapons using their own ammunition and offensive and defensive spells drawing on green and blue mana; the Tome of Power is now a defensive spell that temporarily strengthens weapons and spells. His bladestaff can perform several attacks and sever enemies' limbs, magical shrines grant armour, health or permanent upgrades, and the 3D world allowed gymnastic moves such as climbing ledges, back-flipping off walls and pole vaulting.

Making Heretic II

A team of 20 began work in November 1997, programming the camera system within a month and, after Activision approved a demo, finishing just before Thanksgiving 1998. They kept the Quake II software renderer and enhanced it for 16-bit colour, animating Corvus mostly in Softimage and world objects in 3D Studio Max. Activision published it for Windows, and Loki, Hyperion and MacPlay ported it to Linux, Amiga and Mac. It is the only game in the Heretic and Hexen series unconnected to id beyond licensing the engine. Critics were positive: Next Generation gave it three stars, saying it "has a lot going for it", and Edge praised its mix of platforming and shooting, which set it apart from both id's shooters and Tomb Raider, and it was a finalist for Computer Gaming World's Best Action award. But it was a commercial failure, selling 28,994 copies in the US by April 1999, which Activision's Steve Felsen blamed on first-person shooter fans avoiding its third-person view.