Heretic II (Heretic2R)
Game: Heretic II (Windows, 1998)
Heretic2R: a reverse-engineered port of Heretic II that replaces the original game’s executable and libraries and runs its data. It supports widescreen with automatic HUD scaling, decouples the rendering frame rate from the network packet rate (with a theoretical maximum of 1000 fps), updates most special effects at the rendering frame rate instead of 20 fps, plays music as OGG, and loads maps faster, plus many bug fixes and cosmetic tweaks so the game plays the way you remember it rather than how it actually played. According to its author, the single-player campaign is fairly well tested and can be completed without major issues; co-op and multiplayer work but are practically untested, and since R4 it can also run as a dedicated server. GameSpy online multiplayer, gamepad support, and HiDPI support aren’t implemented, and frame rates above 60 fps and resolutions above 1080p haven’t been tested. Its saves aren’t compatible with the original’s, and because of API changes neither are Heretic II’s renderers, sound backends, or game libraries. The first release, R1, came out on March 23; the latest is R6 (August 3), for Windows, which finished the compass the original game had left incomplete. The repository also includes, in its stuff folder, a ZIP of about 10.8 MB with the files of Heretic II’s official 1.06 patch (the Heretic II Enhancement Pack) minus its .exe and .dll files, which the README offers for updating your copy instead of the patch’s installer.
You needThe data from your own copy of Heretic II for PC, updated to version 1.06: without it, models, textures, and sounds are missing. Either overwrite the game’s binaries with Heretic2R’s or copy the game’s base folder, minus its .dll files, into the Heretic2R folder. For music, rip the CD’s tracks 2–14 to OGG (track02.ogg to track14.ogg) into the music folder inside base. Plus Windows.
- How it gets to PC
- Fan reimplementation
- Console
- Microsoft Windows
- Original studio
- Raven Software
- Year
- 1998
- Author
- m-x-d
- Stars
- 279
- Last activity
- 2026-08-21 · 2 months ago
- Latest version
- R6 · 2026-08-03
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Language
- C
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