Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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In a realm corrupted by the evil magic of three brothers known as the Serpent Riders, you are a heretic. As one of the last Sidhe elves, and a capable mage, you embark on a quest for vengeance against those who slaughtered your friends, family, and entire race.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is a classic, fps and action game
developed by Raven Software
and published by id Software.
Released on August 03rd 2007 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 1,135 reviews of which 1,068 were positive and 67 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.9 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 4.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders into these genres:
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System requirements
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Windows
Minimum: A 100% Windows 2000/XP/Vista-compatible computer system
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
It's Heretic! If you're more familiar with Doom (which is fair) think of this as basically Doom's fantasy-themed cousin made by the folks over at Raven Software. It takes the foundation of Doom and expands upon it with new visuals, new enemies, new weapons, more intricate level design, devilishly hidden secrets, and a full inventory system for storing items and powerups! Now I don't really recommend playing Heretic as you're given it here. What I recommend is that you play it through GZDoom or another sourceport that supports Heretic. Here's how you can play Heretic through GZDoom and still have Steam track play time: 1. Download the latest version of GZDoom onto your computer. 2. Find your Heretic install (ex: "C:/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Heretic") 3. Extract the contents of your GZDoom zip file into the folder named "base" in your Heretic install. 4. Delete the dosbox executable within the "base" folder and rename the GZDoom executable to "dosbox" 5. Run Heretic through Steam and the GZDoom start menu will appear, click that you want to play "Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders (HERETIC)" and click "Play Game" to launch Heretic. 6 (optional). Take a look through the settings menu. I typically enable the crosshair, I keep freelook enabled, but you can turn that off to be more authentic, unbind jumping and crouching (they weren't in Heretic originally, and can break certain levels) and you may want to quickly look over the rest of the bindings so you'll know how to use the inventory. Congrats! you have Heretic running on the GZDoom sourceport through Steam!
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DOOM OF THE RINGS. Possibly one of the best games ever made. Nowadays with Zdoom and some right tweaking with the settings and keybindings it plays 100% fine and modern. Heretic it's arcane gaming, games like this are not made anymore. And it's dirty cheap. It's a must play if you are an FPS fan. 9.5/10 - The Heretic, the Mutant, the Alien.
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Raven Software managed to create one of the most stunning sprite art environments i've ever seen in the 1990s. Heretic is a lot of fun, has great weapon variety and definitely my favorite ID 1 game.
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Heretic takes place in a dark fantasy world where you play as Corvus, a surviving Sindhe whose homeland was invaded by the Serpent Riders and their minions. Despite all the odds, you persist through desolate cities, cathedrals, tombs, hallways, towers, domes and dungeons surrounded by darkness, lava or even layers of water. The first three episodes were really good but the bonus two episodes can be somewhat difficult and time-consuming. The music is fantastic throughout the game that fits the atmosphere. The weapons came in a variety and equip different types of ammo (e.g. crystals, bows, orbs and runes) but can be amplified if you use the book of tome. The power-ups were helpful and can be manipulated to your advantage. The enemies range from size, appearance and strength in a similar fashion to Doom besides this game was made with the doom engine with some extra modifications. This game is enjoyable and can be enjoyed by people who love fantasy games or first person shooters. It deserves to be up there with Doom, it's legacy cannot be denied. Overall Rating: 10/10
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It's easy to write Heretic off as "Fantasy Doom" but that would be selling it short. Sure, it's the same engine, the same fight / key / switch / boss battle game-play wrapped in an ethereal setting but several things set it apart (and sometimes above) its Doom roots. For one, Heretic is more impressive on a technical level. You have an inventory with ten or so deployable power-ups, such as bombs, invincibility and even flight. Maps often feature ambient noise, and even weather effects such as splashing water and high winds (my favorite level in the game has you working your way up and down a series of violent rapids while fending off baddies.) Also: this is a *Raven* shooter. These guys know what they are doing. Albeit an earlier entry in their portfolio, you can always expect an above-average degree of love and inspiration from a Raven shooter. Great level design, great attention to detail. There is a distinct polish in the visuals, architecture and sprite-work. For instance, certain enemies, when defeated, explode apart and their souls can literally be seen departing. This pleases me. The weapons are of course variations on the Doom arsenal while still managing to perform in new and novel fashions (they have secondary fires, for instance). I cannot, however, get over how goofy the chaingun variant is. Called the "power fist", it's basically a glove that shoots hit-scan mana projectiles and whenever I see it at the bottom of my screen I can't help but think of a big hairy **** firing blue piss. Freud might have had something to say about that. Heretic is also a much more colorful game than Doom. My favorite episode would have to be the one set underwater. You'll know it when you see it. The texture work is commendable throughout but this set of levels in particular gives the impression of being inside a giant underground aquarium and I'm here for it. My only gripe would be the general tankiness of the enemies, which can cause levels to drag on and overstay their welcome. The monster count skyrockets between the "normal" and "hard" difficulties meaning you'd be forgiven for only being able to palette one map at a time before taking a break. You know: first world problems. This is the full package, containing the original three episodes (marked by a final boss that goes through multiple phases, how neat is that) and what I assume are two expansions released later on. The first of these additions is a massive ball-buster, containing a series of agonizingly tense combat puzzles and just all around early proof that these were the guys who had what it took to go on to make such works of art as Wolfenstein, Jedi Outcast and Elite Force. If you are in the mood for an underrated and often unfairly dismissed old-school shooter with flawless GZDoom compatibility and a decent challenge, wrapped in a nifty gore-soaked dark fantasy aesthetic, you can't go wrong with Heretic.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is currently priced at 4.99€ on Steam.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 4.99€ on Steam.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders received 1,068 positive votes out of a total of 1,135 achieving a rating of 8.88.
😎
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders was developed by Raven Software and published by id Software.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is not playable on MacOS.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is not playable on Linux.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders offers both single-player and multi-player modes.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders offers both Co-op and PvP modes.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders does not currently offer any DLC.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders does not support Steam Remote Play.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 09 June 2025 09:10 |
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| SteamSpy data | 11 June 2025 11:39 |
| Steam price | 15 June 2025 12:44 |
| Steam reviews | 13 June 2025 11:56 |
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- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
5
Developer
Raven Software
Publisher
id Software
Release
03 Aug 2007
Platforms