Here’s a quickstart 10-step guide to installing the old game HeXen: Beyond Heretic (aka Heretic II), in 2021 on Windows. Not to be confused with the later Hexen II, note.
HeXen was a DOOM variant and the successor to the Heretic videogame in the 1990s. Think of it as “fantasy DOOM” with a liking for Mage-class gamers. It is fondly remembered by many (except those who had to wrestle with its initially very buggy release). Here’s my tested downloads/install workflow for 2021. This install-and-mod workflow should also work for DOOM and the other 1990s DOOM variants, when played on Windows under the master Doomsday Engine.
1. Get the 2021 GOG version of HeXen, which includes expansions and CD quality music and is said to be superior to the Steam version. Install.
2. Get the free Doomsday Engine installer. This is a relatively hassle-free way to run HeXen and other early DOOM variants on a modern Windows PC in a modern way, and it includes an automatic widescreen option.
“Doomsday enhances this classic game with many features including 3D graphics, fully customizable controls and client/server multiplayer, making HeXen more accessible to modern gamers.”
At the site, to get the .ZIPs and files you right-click, save as… to download. Seems to be a method of blocking bulk downloader-bots, as there’s no sign-up required.
3. Once installed, the GOG install of HeXen may be automatically detected by the Doomsday Engine. But mine was not. In that case the Help’s instruction to find the WAD file(s) was deeply misleading. HeXen GoG has no visible WAD files. All the Doomsday Engine actually wants to know is the install folder for HeXen. One it is told about C:\GOG Games\HeXen it will be fine.
With that done, launch and test. Kill a few monsters. Exit.
4. Now get all three enhancing Hexen Community Packs here from the Doomsday Engine site. (Again, you right-click, save as…).
Sadly, no installation instructions at all. But this is what I figured out…
i) Cut and paste the “HeXen Community Compilation Pack (jXCCP)” extracted folder, so that it is under C:\GOG Games\HeXen
ii) Now get the other two .pK3 files, and give them each their own folder. Then cut and paste these folders under C:\GOG Games\HeXen
5. Now launch the Doomsday Engine (C:\Program Files\Doomsday 2.3.1\bin\Doomsday.exe) and it will know to re-check C:\GOG Games\HeXen and will thus ‘see’ the three Hexen community addons…
6. OK, you can now at least load the game as it used to be. But first… screenshots? The GoG/Doomsday Engine HeXen does not appear to play well with the third-party old-school FRAPS. You do gets the FPS in the corner of the window. Not that you need that, since this is an old game, for which FPS watching is not now needed. But the game always goes into an un-escapable PAUSED mode, in order for FRAPS to take a screenshot.
7. Solution: ditch FRAPS. You’ll remember that HeXen had its own screenshot maker – just press F12 on the keyboard. This works, but good luck in then finding the screenshot. Turns out they are dropped into the obscure…
C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Deng Team\Doomsday Engine\runtime
… so you probably want to make a Desktop shortcut to this location. Or even a .BAT file to auto copy .PNGs from here to somewhere else.
8. Now about those screenshots… are not as pretty as they might be? Then it’s time for the AI upscaled textures pack and learning how to actually activate the mods. We’re in luck on the AI upscaling. This pack just hit version 4.0 (July 2021). For the Doomsday Engine you want to download from the Dengine link as seen here…
Again this texture mod is a bundled as a raw .PK3 file, and so you do as before. Make a folder, put the .PK3 file in there, cut-paste the folder under C:\GOG Games\HeXen.
Now if you run the vanilla game then it might appear that the pixelated HUD doesn’t get a makeover, and the mods are not doing much…
Ah, that’s because you’re not loading it right. It’s a bit tricky. Here’s how to do it…
Thankfully you only need to do this once, and in future the game should load pre-loaded with the mods you highlighted and selected. From now on you run it from the box icon, not the ‘play’ arrow.
9. OK, that’s it. You can now play HeXen again, stable and also modded and up-scaled.
10. It’s a difficult game and you may want the HeXen Manual and the HeXen Walkthrough. The manual will inform you, for instance, how to get a more minimal HUD.
Before…
How to change…
After, with full mods and texture makeovers running…