Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders

In a realm corrupted by the evil magic of three brothers known as the Serpent Riders, you are a heretic. As one of the last Sidhe elves, and a capable mage, you embark on a quest for vengeance against those who slaughtered your friends, family, and entire race.

Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is a classic, fps and action game developed by Raven Software and published by id Software.
Released on August 03rd 2007 is available in English only on Windows.

It has received 1,103 reviews of which 1,035 were positive and 68 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.9 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 4.99€ on Steam.

The Steam community has classified Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders into these genres:

Classic FPS Action Fantasy Shooter Retro Old School Dark Fantasy 1990's Singleplayer First-Person Boomer Shooter Magic Multiplayer Horror Adventure 2.5D

Media & Screenshots

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Requirements

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Windows

Minimum: A 100% Windows 2000/XP/Vista-compatible computer system

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Oct. 2024

It's easy to write Heretic off as "Fantasy Doom" but that would be selling it short. Sure, it's the same engine, the same fight / key / switch / boss battle game-play wrapped in an ethereal setting but several things set it apart (and sometimes above) its Doom roots. For one, Heretic is more impressive on a technical level. You have an inventory with ten or so deployable power-ups, such as bombs, invincibility and even flight. Maps often feature ambient noise, and even weather effects such as splashing water and high winds (my favorite level in the game has you working your way up and down a series of violent rapids while fending off baddies.) Also: this is a *Raven* shooter. These guys know what they are doing. Albeit an earlier entry in their portfolio, you can always expect an above-average degree of love and inspiration from a Raven shooter. Great level design, great attention to detail. There is a distinct polish in the visuals, architecture and sprite-work. For instance, certain enemies, when defeated, explode apart and their souls can literally be seen departing. This pleases me. The weapons are of course variations on the Doom arsenal while still managing to perform in new and novel fashions (they have secondary fires, for instance). I cannot, however, get over how goofy the chaingun variant is. Called the "power fist", it's basically a glove that shoots hit-scan mana projectiles and whenever I see it at the bottom of my screen I can't help but think of a big hairy **** firing blue piss. Freud might have had something to say about that. Heretic is also a much more colorful game than Doom. My favorite episode would have to be the one set underwater. You'll know it when you see it. The texture work is commendable throughout but this set of levels in particular gives the impression of being inside a giant underground aquarium and I'm here for it. My only gripe would be the general tankiness of the enemies, which can cause levels to drag on and overstay their welcome. The monster count skyrockets between the "normal" and "hard" difficulties meaning you'd be forgiven for only being able to palette one map at a time before taking a break. You know: first world problems. This is the full package, containing the original three episodes (marked by a final boss that goes through multiple phases, how neat is that) and what I assume are two expansions released later on. The first of these additions is a massive ball-buster, containing a series of agonizingly tense combat puzzles and just all around early proof that these were the guys who had what it took to go on to make such works of art as Wolfenstein, Jedi Outcast and Elite Force. If you are in the mood for an underrated and often unfairly dismissed old-school shooter with flawless GZDoom compatibility and a decent challenge, wrapped in a nifty gore-soaked dark fantasy aesthetic, you can't go wrong with Heretic.

Oct. 2024

older generation game based on the original DOOM engine, Still fun to play once you get past the old style graphics

Oct. 2024

This is one of my favorites from back in the day. I played Doom when it first came out as shareware. Later there was a lot of Doom-alikes, but this game took it to a whole different level. If you like Doom, you should love this.

Sept. 2024

Reliving my childhood when I only had the shareware version of the game, late in the 90's, played on a Pentium 75Mhz machine with 16MB of RAM. If you don't mind the use of the same engine as for Doom, with some enhancements, like the medieval fantasy setting, and weren't born yesterday, I do recommend this classic.

June 2024

A fantastic classic, though the port kind of sucks, so I would recommend playing it via ZDoom. The midi music slaps, the medieval setting is cool and the gore is plentiful. The included DLC, Shadow of the Serpent Riders, which encompasses Episodes 4 and 5, is kind of disappointing as the level design and enemy placements are worse in a lot of the levels than in the original in my eyes (only improving in the latter half of Episode 5 imo), but the game as a whole remains fun to play through, slaughtering hordes of monsters with magical weapons and using trinkets to help. A definite recommendation!

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Last Updates

Steam data	19 November 2024 08:15
SteamSpy data	21 January 2025 08:26
Steam price	22 January 2025 20:46
Steam reviews	20 January 2025 20:09

4.99€

8.9

1,035

Online players

Developer

Raven Software

Publisher

id Software

Release 03 Aug 2007

Platforms