Why Weren't Heretic 3 and Hexen 3 Made?

We got Heretic and Hexen on id Tech 1. Then Hexen 2 came on id Tech 2, with Heretic 2 being on the Quake 2 engine. We haven't got a sequel afterwards on id Tech 3 or 4. Why is that the case? A Hexen mod was made for Doom 3, but no official entry yet. Nothing on Heretic was done. Should they have got official sequels on id Tech 4?

38 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

We got Heretic and Hexen on id Tech 1. Then Hexen 2 came on id Tech 2, with Heretic 2 being on the Quake 2 engine. We haven't got a sequel afterwards on id Tech 3 or 4. Why is that the case?

IP got desolved/Game didn't sell well/Nobody thought of it/No need for another sequel at the time/It just never got made.

Take your pick.

38 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

Should they have got official sequels on id Tech 4?

Why id Tech 4 specifically?

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

Why id Tech 4 specifically?

No, the question is if they should have made a sequel on id Tech 4 before.

3 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

No, the question is if they should have made a sequel on id Tech 4 before.

And to that i say: Why Id Tech 4 specifically? Why its specific feature set?

...I have to say i am pretty amazed by your uncanny ability to translate these questions completely the wrong way.

Is still Raven Software around?

I thought they were absorbed by other company... Atari may ring on my head, don't know why.

EDIT: Activision, thanks DoomWiki! ;)

And so, if thats the case, unless the company holding the rights not see a monetary profit on releasing a sequel of this games, then there is no sequel to be made.

Simple as that, i think.

Doom, not only from the commercial stand point, was always something big on the industry. Be it as one of the first FPS, be it as a commercial success.

So its normal that the company that holds the right of it, will try to make profit of it.
 

Heretic and Hexen, and Strife to some extent, weren't as succeful as Doom.

Thats why there wasn't even modern re-release of those games, save for Strife, thanks to Nightdive Studio.

I'd like to strongly disagree with the notion that sequels to them wouldn't sell or that people wouldn't be interested in them. Heretic and Hexen seem to only have gotten more popular as time went on, especially now that retro shooters have kind of stabilized to the same-ish popularity to the general modern public, especially now with youtubers covering them, and not to mention how the revival of boomer shooters has got people much more open to these kinds of games, whether they're franchises that existed for decades or completely new IPs, and also how Graven has somewhat shown that dark fantasy FPSs still can attract a lot of attention.

I don't think it's in any case even hard to see those two making a lot of success if done right in modern engines, it's probably just a matter of Activision not caring about the legacy of Raven Software, or probably not even seeing potential in this FPS renaissance at all since they've still got one of the most popular FPS franchises in the world. Sad, but not unexpected.

First thing to keep in mind is that half of the creative team that worked on Heretic and Hexen series left Raven Software in reaction to the Activision buyout, so as to form Human Head Studios, which would go on to make Rune, the first Prey, Brink, fail to make the second Prey, and barely manage to make Rune 2 before dissolving itself to escape its contractual obligation to support the game post-launch. Then they created Roundhouse Studios instead, with ZeniMax's financial backing.

The half that remained in Raven made a bunch of franchised games (Soldier of Fortune, Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Men...), worked back with id a bit to make Quake IV and Wolfy '09, before crashing and burning with Singularity and being sent to the Call of Duty DLC mine as punishment. They haven't worked on anything that wasn't Call of Duty content for a decade now.

While they have sometimes, on their Twitter or Facebook, talked about reviving their old franchises like Heretic, Hexen, or even Shadowcaster; it's pretty clear it's never gonna happen.

9 minutes ago, MattFright said:

I'd like to strongly disagree with the notion that sequels to them wouldn't sell or that people wouldn't be interested in them. Heretic and Hexen seem to only have gotten more popular as time went on, especially now that retro shooters have kind of stabilized to the same-ish popularity to the general modern public, especially now with youtubers covering them, and not to mention how the revival of boomer shooters has got people much more open to these kinds of games, whether they're franchises that existed for decades or completely new IPs, and also how Graven has somewhat shown that dark fantasy FPSs still can attract a lot of attention.

 

I don't think it's in any case even hard to see those two making a lot of success if done right in modern engines, it's probably just a matter of Activision not caring about the legacy of Raven Software, or probably not even seeing potential in this FPS renaissance at all since they've still got one of the most popular FPS franchises in the world. Sad, but not unexpected.

They're not boomer shooters.

Well someday we'll see a revival. Amid Evil is said to be a spiritual successor to Heretic, but it looks more like Quake. It could probably be the id Tech 2 Heretic game we wanted.

Just to add my inane five cents: I love how "Hexen successors" never seem to have the class thing going on. Especially in a post hero shooter era.

Because after the "Serpent Rider" saga ended, Raven saw really no need to keep making sequels to those games, so they decided to be the "guns for hire" for other studios. They worked with Lucas Arts on the Jedi Academy games, with Activision on the Star Trek Elite Force games, and with Id Software on Quake 4 and Wolfenstein 09. Singularity would be their last full game back in 2010, before they basically became DLC factories for Call of Duty.

Probably due to the decline of the IPs throughout the years, and with some of the games becoming commercially unavailable as well, there wasn't much point in going forward with the series.

It may be worth it nowadays, thanks to the recent revival of boomer shooters, but Raven is no longer what they were back when they developed these games, there's a different culture at the studio now. And following their last Wolfenstein game and it underperforming, they decided to do something else instead. Not sure they could still do it even if they wanted to.

I seen "Hexen 3: Edge of Chaos" mod for Doom 3 some time ago however lol

Hexen 2 concluded the story.

On 1/8/2021 at 5:41 PM, Pegg said:

Hexen 2 concluded the story.

Pretty much, although the ending of Portal of Praevus again left it open for a potential sequel. But that would be stretching it at that point.

There was an interview with Kevin Schilder recently that touched on it a bit, at least from his perspective:

http://earthday.free.fr/Inkys-Hexen-II-Mapping-Corner/interview-kevinschilder.html

To boil it down to bullet points,

• The IP rights are contentious, which is also why Portal of Praevus and Heretic II aren't sold any more.
• Even if that weren't the case, the Raven/Human Head split left lasting bad blood between the original creators of the franchise.

The points people have made above about the story being pretty much "done" are worth considering, too, though in this age of reboots and remakes it's not like that would stop anyone looking to make a buck off it if they could.

Just make mods for what we have.  It's better that way.

Not sure why Portal of Praevus & Heretic II are "unrereleasable" to this day but maybe because they didn't make enough profit.

Hey, at least be grateful you got Call of Duty: Black Ops.

In the first place, Heretic 2 should have been an FPS game.

If Heretic 3 came, would it be TPS or FPS?

From my understanding, id holds the publishing rights while Raven holds the development rights to the IP although I might be wrong. They'd have to negotiate something for it.

Well if the series ever gets revived, it ought to be Roundhouse Studios that does it. Most of the people that worked on Heretic and Hexen already left Raven after Activision bought the company and many of them flocked to Human Head Studios (which is now Roundhouse). They're still there from what I can tell, and have since worked on games like Rune, Dead Man's Hand, and Prey. Kevin Schilder is working freelance, so they could hire him to compose the music as he did for the earlier games. And they could use the latest id Tech engine supplied by id Software, who could even co-develop the game since they're finished with Doom Eternal.

All they need to do is purchase the developing rights from Activision, which they could do with Microsoft/Xbox backing them up.

I guess Heretic and Hexen ain't eternal like DOOM

As of now, MS owns Activision and might allow devs to be free of the COD mines and Raven is even unionizing.

I always assumed bringing back old FPS franchises would be challenging for a lot of reasons:

* Most of them always had small settings/presentations (even if a few had deeper lore or stuff like voice acting and Build engine-like details to levels) and were mainly defined by gameplay/engine characteristics/aspects like "Oh this one has room over room, this other lets you jump, this one has alt fires etc"; this is why the term "Build engine trilogy" exists and how games like Heretic and ROTT can be seen as "spin-offs" to Doom and Wolf or how Doom/Quake/Wolf 3D for a trilogy too because it's as if the setting/brand was secondary to the gameplay/engine.

* Some FPS games we got as of now are essentially combinations of existing elements (specially both AAA and indie trying to break away from brown military FPS and "hero" class shooters), which is also why modern Doom games have some elements you can trace back to Quake, Duke, Turok and a few more.

* (at the same time, i always thought "Doom is SP, Quake is MP" was always a dumb generalization since Quake SP mods are more alive than its MP stuff and it feels like some "hot take" people caught into as "how real boomers think" when the modding stuff contradicts that a bit)

* The concept of an "idverse" may at least justify if a Quake 5 or Heretic 6 end up as actual Doom games/expansions, not because of "epic crossover lore" but because of "shit, it's hard to make them distinct and seperate but at least you get to see Doomguy fight Shamblers and Iron Liches and an HD model of Corvus".

* Because Doom 2016/Eternal is different from classic Doom, i can see differences a new Heretic/Hexen would have from their classic games and for better or worse, we could get new changes that people like but also either new things that divide the fans or the lack of stuff like the Iron Lich tornados.

* Unlike Doom, i can't see "speed and velocity" being a focus, not only because of Hexen being more about exploration and puzzles but also because of Heretic's focus on inventory and Tome of Power firing mods including player abilities that may not fit a fast game, though Baratus has potential for a first person character action game. (i mean, you can technically make a game with both variety and speed)

* Some people dismiss Heretic as "Doom but with a fantasy skin", so i can see new RPG game features and art style changes making it even harder for this series to distinct itself from WRPG's or MOBA's unless the devs and artists know what they're doing.

* Even Doom's setting and style changes but to me, the concept behind the Night Sentinels always felt fitting for Quake 1.

I can at least see crossovers with Doom or even stuff like a hidden Heretic/Hexen/etc port in a Doom game after the Fortress of Doom's old computer.

But still, always thought "Doom 6 and so on" would be easier, because at least you'd make Doom some sort of "FPS tribute franchise" and i guess make people happy that some mod is "technically canon because these features also show up in a Doom game" and please that specific part of the brain.

But "modernized ports for newcomers that are acceptable enough to old fans as well" from someone like Nightdive would be great.

Then again, i usually have conflicting thoughs (hence my long posts) and caught up in the middle between "Quake is more different to Doom than you'd think" and "i'd like to see Doom have more stuff even if borrowed from somewhere" or "but mods already keep the games alive and did fanservice too" or "id please take notes from these mods and hire that man".

52 minutes ago, whatup876 said:

As of now, MS owns Activision

No.

Such acquisitions take time. The ZeniMax buyout was announced in September 2020 but was finalized in March 2021. Active Gizzard is a bigger purchase by one order of magnitude (7.5 billion dollars for ZMM, 68.7 billions for Acting Lizard), so you can expect the deal to take longer to implement. Especially as this one is large enough that a veto from an antitrust instance is not impossible.

CNN posted:

The agreement is pending regulatory review and Activision Blizzard shareholder approval, with the deal set to close in 2023. The companies will continue to operate independently until the transaction is finalized, after which Activision Blizzard will report to Spencer.

If the SEC let Disney buy Marvel and Fox, I think MS buying Acti-Blizz is a foregone conclusion. Mega-conglomerates are definitely in our future.

Oh ok, oops. guess i just jumped to some conclusions before considering that.

Either way, does anyone from the old games still work at Raven?

I can see if that is another reason why people want Raven to collab with id in general for Heretic and Hexen.

I think how the world building in general is handled might be more crucial than with Doom.

On 3/5/2021 at 2:11 AM, Blackroat said:

If Heretic 3 came, would it be TPS or FPS?

It would be a Battle royale or a Farmville-like.

1 minute ago, whatup876 said:

Oh ok, oops. guess i just jumped to some conclusions before considering that.

Either way, does anyone from the old games still work at Raven?

I can see if that is another reason why people want Raven to collab with id in general for Heretic and Hexen.

I think how the world building in general is handled might be more crucial than with Doom.

Very few. I know of two people myself, Kevin Schilder and James Monroe (Strife programmer, worked on Hexen II and Heretic II).

Aren't the Raffel bros still there? That'd be two more.

I guess they might do something with the serpent riders series. Although this seems like just speculation and it is kinda weird to start any remakes with Hexen instead of Heretic, Heretic has a lot more lore and can always be updated with RPG mechanics if they are gunning for that.

Remake may not be the rigth term, maybe something like, REBOOT! with stuff that complement the old game with new mechanics.