Heretic II Remastered

Heretic II Remastered is a reverse-engineered source port of Heretic II (1998, Raven Software), with HD enhancements and modern engine improvements. Now completely 64bit with modern game control support out of the box and automatic detection of Original game data (Steam / GOG / CD) The best way to play Heretic II now and for the forseeable future!

Features:

* Widescreen support (with automatic HUD scaling).

* Rendering framerate decoupled from network packets sending rate (with theoretical maximum of 1000 FPS).

OGG music playback.

* Most of special effects are updated at rendering framerate (instead of 20 FPS).

* Improved map loading times.

* Lots of cosmetic improvements (so the game plays as you remember it, not as it actually played).

* Many bugfixes.

* Gamepad support via SDL3 (xinput/dinput/HID controllers).

* HiDPI / high-resolution display support.

* OpenGL 3.3 Core Profile renderer (ref_gl3.dll). Allows support for ReShade (all latest versions) as FPO is supported with Depth Buffer (Upside down, flip to use in global preprocessor settings)

* With the OpenGL 3.3 renderer, the game can run on modern Linux and macOS via Wine/Proton (untested, but should work in theory).

* Windows Media Foundation video playback backend (winmf_video.dll) for MP4/MKV support and better performance compared to libsmacker.

* stb_vorbis OGG music playback backend (stbv_music.dll) for better performance and lower memory usage compared to libvorbis.

Dynamic Shadow Mapping — dynamic shadows for entities and world geometry, with support for alpha-tested textures (e.g. grates, fences).

Dynamic Lighting — dynamic per-pixel lighting for entities and world geometry, with support for normal maps and specular maps in HD textures.

Parallax Mapping — parallax mapping for world geometry, with support for height maps in HD textures.

Bloom — bloom post-processing effect for emissive materials (e.g. lava, fire).

Screen Space Reflections — screen space reflections for water surfaces.

Anti-Aliasing — FXAA anti-aliasing for smoother edges.

Configurable controls — fully customizable keybindings and gamepad mappings via in-game menu.

Skyboxes now have dynamic stars (instead of static sky textures).

Improved particle effects — more particles, better blending, and support for HD textures.

Improved water rendering — animated water surfaces with reflections and refractions.

SAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion) — ambient occlusion effect for better depth perception and contact shadows.

HD texture replacement — drop-in PNG replacements for original .m8/.m32 textures via the HDTextures folder.

HD video playback — MP4/MKV cinematics via Windows Media Foundation.

PAK2 archive format — extended PAK format supporting filenames up to 128 characters (see below).

base.pak support — all game data (textures, models, sounds, music, HD textures, HD videos) can be distributed as a single base.pak archive.

Automatic CD detection — if a Heretic II CD is in any CD/DVD drive, the engine automatically extracts the required PAK files (no manual copying needed).

Smooth UI enhancements - New animations added to UI, fade in/ out transitions and starfield / northen lights which makes the game look better when using hardcoded 4:3 assets