Hexen II

About Hexen II

Hexen II (1997) is Raven Software's Quake-engine fantasy shooter, the end of the Serpent Riders trilogy, with four levelling character classes, destructible scenery and hub levels across four themed continents.

Hexen II in Depth

The world of Thyrion has been enslaved by the eldest and most powerful of the three Serpent Rider brothers, Eidolon, after the previous games freed two other worlds. He is supported by four generals modelled on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and to face each one the player must travel to a different continent: medieval European Blackmarsh, Mesoamerican Mazaera, Ancient Egyptian Thysis and Greco-Roman Septimus, before returning to Blackmarsh to confront Eidolon in his cathedral.

Instead of Hexen's three classes there are four, each with its own weapons and style: the "offensive" Paladin, the "defensive" Crusader, the spell-casting Necromancer and the stealthy Assassin. Role-playing elements give each character statistics that rise with experience, increasing their health and mana. Improvements over Hexen and Quake include destructible environments, mounted weapons and unique abilities gained on levelling up. As in its predecessor, levels are grouped into hubs of interconnected maps, where changes in one level affect another, and Heretic's Tome of Power returns.

Making Hexen II

Raven Software developed Hexen II on an enhanced Quake engine, and id Software published it for Windows in 1997. Much of its music remixes the Hexen and Heretic soundtracks to suit each hub. Activision acquired rights to PlayStation and Saturn versions, but neither was released. Reviews were generally positive: Edge praised its inventive, interactive levels, varied enemies and AI, and GamePro its fast multiplayer and class selection, saying "you could spend days playing through all four characters". GameSpot found its design superior to Hexen and its visuals "without equal in the action genre", calling it "one of the most beautiful games ever made", but said progress depended on actions so obscure that the result was "confusing and often frustratingly difficult". It was commercially unsuccessful, selling slightly over 30,000 copies according to Erik Bethke. Raven released the engine source under the GPL in November 2000, enabling ports to Linux and the Dreamcast, and it came to Steam in 2007.