to register my extreme disappointment that the Heretic/Hexen series has never been picked up again?

I mean, Quake hasn't been picked up again, that's true, but Doom, Wolf3d, and Quake 2 all have... 

I know Tronyn, Heretic II is probably my best experience in a 3rd person game ever. That and Rune. Speaking of which, where's a Rune 2!?

Companies are always looking for franchises, even Shadow fucking Warrior gets remade which wasn't even that good back then. But no Hexen, Heretic or Rune :(

On the other hand, if Heretic or Hexen was remade, they'd probably fuck it up.

Oh almost forgot to mention, there has been a Hexen indie remake going for a number of years using idtech4. Don't know if they'll ever finish it. http://hexenmod.net/ 

The old Shadow Warrior was great. Certainly better than Heretic. 

I always thought Heretic was cruelly underrated, and I had lots of fun playing it. In any case, I find it really superior to Hexen since it doesn't have retarded level design. I've been playing Hexen 2 on and off and it's way better than Hexen in nearly every aspect. 

If they did a commercial remake of Hexen or Heretic, it'd just be a generic modern action game, based on flavour-of-the-month design ideas, and it'll no doubt be made all "gritty" and "realistic" with a moody goth/emo protagonist who swears and has internal struggles and so forth.

I missed out on all those games apart from Hexen 2 - a game which I never managed to get into to be honest - so a lame generic remake wouldn't bother me too much.

However, I would get night terrors thinking about the awfulness of what a "Quake" remake might consist of. Oh god...

Speaking of Quake - and I will get flamed for this - I have to say the only vaguely quake-like experience I've had since the 90s has come from Doom 3. I know the player is crippled in comparison, but there was something about the minimalist gameplay (by modern standards), relentlessly hostile environment, and ambience that made D3 id's closest game to Quake yet (imo). 

Heretic has retarded weapons though. 

I have to say the only vaguely quake-like experience I've had since the 90s has come from Doom 3.

I was thinking that as well. If you do a few quick modifications to the gameplay; upping player speed to always run, expanding clips or entirely removing clips, it suddenly feels very quake: A few strong monsters chasing after you in a dangerous environment. 

...strokes beard. 

I smell a mod project.

Who's modded for Doom3? Necros?

I vaguely remember hearing it was a pain in the arse. 

it's not that bad, but because it's modern it requires more assets which makes it more work.

I was working on a mod but i lost the entire thing to an hdd crash. it's what made me start backing everything up. :P 

i lost the entire thing to an hdd crash.

Again!? 

just the once. 

That's actually everything I wish for every time I play it :P 

for that exact reason. 

I sped the player up, and reduced the shotgun spread, and fixed the damned awful owl-necked damage feedback, tuned a lot of things to be a little more Romero and a lot less Willits, and made a little DMSP map. Shambler didn't like it.

No idea where the files are now. 

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=26972

(Link's broken :( ) 

Damn shame you never finished it lunaran! 

http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60202&start=65 

that looks quite Hexen-ish, perhaps with a touch of Painkiller:

http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2013/05/hellraid-looks-a-lot-like-hexen-in-its-first-trailer/ 

Awesome, and by techland so they shouldn't fuck it up. Hopefully it's proper old skool not some open world rpg bull'ish. 

Quake 2 - close gameplay and feel, but a bit slower and less brutal.
Unreal - close environmental and monster styles, but again slower and less brutal.
Undying - close environmental variety and atmosphere, but too arcane and slow.
Requiem - close-ish variety and monsters, but not got the same visceral feel.
Doom 3 - very close monster style and atmosphere, but sparse enemies and less visceral.
Painkiller - close environments and speed, and gameplay simplicity, but even less coherent and little atmosphere.
Enclave / Dark Messiah - close environments and monsters, but pure fantasy or 3PS.
Wolfenstein Reboot - close-ish feel and environments, but too humanoid monsters and too slow.

Some of the others mentioned are clearly bollox, and some of the others dismissed are clearly rightly dismissed (Serious Spunk).

But some of these are potentially very close. Increase the movement speed and weapon damage in Unreal and through in some more brutal monsters. Increase the movement speed in Doom 3, swap half of the base for an abstract medieval environment and increase the monster numbers. Replace half the Wolf Reboot monsters with demons. Etc.

But as people are concluding, despite close contenders, nothing seems to have got all the core tennets of:

Simple controls and a solid feel
Fast movement and fast weapons
Proper monsterly monsters
Dark atmosphere and a weird but perceptible theme
Abstract and varied arcane environments

...yet.... 

Don't forget the vertical level design. Sock pointed this out in Zendar, and thinking about it, it's rare that level design has such verticality as it did in quake.

I can think of a few bits in FPS games here and there, but you can tell the Quake team were drunk on the possibilities of true 3d space when they put the levels together. 

I think most of the contenders I listed do that fairly well. Certainly Q2 and Unreal do. Painkiller much less so. D3 and WOFL not bad. 

I always thought about Painkiller as a relatively slow game, at least if you're not bunny-hopping like crazy. Serious Sam is faster, with a more functional bestiary, but it has an even stronger emphasis on crowd control, which is not very Quake (I'm not taking atmosphere into account right now). 

I don't think any of those come close.
Things it needs to have to qualify:

* Strong but dodgeable projectiles.
* Comparatively weak hitscan.
* Maps with unlockable loops.
* Map z-axis is fundamental.
* Baddies with highly differentiated mobility.
* Baddies should work with z-axis.
* Unbroken pacing (no stamina, reload or autoheal).
* Environmental hazards.
* Encouraging exploration through secrets.

Notice how over the past decade popular FPS have increasingly thrown these overboard. Resulting in players running over a bumpy plane with walls inbetween, fighting bad guys that are all basically humans with some variations on a hitscan weapon.
Rather than doing environmental hazards to limit the playing space we now have invisible walls and helicopters coming to shoot you down when straying outside the playing field. You are so bold to think that the game would encourage exploration, it much rather does not bother with it, kind of a shame. Despite a game like Half Life starting a trend of more 'realistic' weapons in linear maps and ingame cutscenes, it's still pretty 'old fashioned' with environmental hazards and highly differentiated enemy types.