Hexen: Beyond Heretic

Hexen: Beyond Heretic is a dark fantasy first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software, published by id Software, and distributed by GT Interactive beginning on October 30, 1995. It is the sequel to 1994's Heretic, and the second game in Raven's 'Serpent Riders' series. The title comes from the German noun 'Hexen', which means 'witches' (in plural) or the verb 'hexen' which means 'to cast a spell'.

Following the tale of D'Sparil's defeat in Heretic, Hexen takes place in another realm, Cronos, which is besieged by the second of the Serpent Riders, Korax. Three heroes set out to destroy Korax. The player assumes the role of one such hero.

A new series feature introduced in Hexen is the choice of character class. Players may choose to play as a fighter, cleric, or mage. Each character has unique weapons and physical characteristics, lending an additional degree of variety and replay value to the gameplay. The Fighter relies mainly on close quarter martial attacks with weapons both mundane and magical in nature, and is tougher and faster than the other characters. The Mage uses an assortment of long-range spells, whose reach is counterbalanced by the fact that he is the most fragile and slowest moving of the classes. The Cleric arms himself with a combination of both melee and ranged capabilities, being a middle ground of sorts between the other two classes. Additionally, certain items behave differently when collected and used by each of the classes, functioning in a manner better suiting their varying approach to combat, further differentiating the three.

Hexen introduces 'hub' levels to the series, wherein the player travels back and forth between central hub levels and connected side levels. This is done in order to solve larger-scale puzzles that require a series of items or switches to be thrown. The player must traverse through a hub in order to reach a boss and advance to the next hub.