PCWhere to buy
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is the expanded retail edition of Heretic, Raven Software’s 1994 dark-fantasy shooter. GT Interactive Software sold it at retail on March 22, 1996 in North America and on March 31, 1996 in Europe. It keeps the original three episodes and adds two nine-map episodes, The Ossuary and The Stagnant Demesne, plus three hidden warp-only maps. The original MS-DOS game first appeared as shareware on December 29, 1994.
If you search for “Shadow of the Serpent Riders,” you are looking for this version, which is the Heretic title the 2025 bundle uses. Its sequel, Hexen: Beyond Heretic, is a separate game.
Technical Specifications
| Attribute | Details |
|---|---|
| Developer | Raven Software |
| Publisher | GT Interactive Software (retail) · id Software (original Heretic) |
| Engine | Modified Doom engine |
| Platform | MS-DOS (original release) |
| Release | March 22, 1996 (North America, retail) · March 31, 1996 (Europe) |
| Content | 5 episodes of 9 maps each · 3 hidden warp-only maps (Fate’s Path) |
| New Episodes | The Ossuary · The Stagnant Demesne |
| Genre | First-person shooter, dark fantasy |
| Mode(s) | Single-player · multiplayer |
What the Retail Edition Adds
The original has three episodes: City of the Damned, Hell’s Maw and The Dome of D’Sparil, nine maps each. Shadow of the Serpent Riders adds The Ossuary (episode 4) and The Stagnant Demesne (episode 5), also nine maps each, for 45 maps in the main game. According to the Doom Wiki, the expansion contains no new content beyond the levels and no new monsters.
Fate’s Path: The Hidden Sixth Episode
The game also contains a sixth episode, Fate’s Path, with three untitled maps that cannot be reached from the menu. You can open them with the -warp command-line parameter or the ENGAGE cheat. Wikipedia notes that the third map has no exit. The Doom Wiki adds that E4M1 was moved to E6M3.
Difficulty: Harder Than the Original
Players consider the two new episodes much harder than the first three, according to the Doom Wiki. It cites the first map of The Ossuary, Catafalque, which puts a maulotaur and a large number of other monsters in your way. Maximum’s reviewer called Heretic a clone of Doom but praised the retail episodes.
Upgrading and Versions
Registered owners of the three-episode game did not have to buy the retail edition: a free upgrade patch brought them to the expanded version 1.3, according to the Doom Wiki. The original three-episode version was later discontinued. The 2025 package Heretic + Hexen includes Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, along with a new Heretic episode, Faith Renewed, that is not part of the 1996 game.
Where to Play It
The edition is available today in Heretic + Hexen (August 7, 2025) on Steam, GOG, the Microsoft Store, the PlayStation Store and the Nintendo eShop, for PC, Xbox, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Switch. It launched at $14.99, and owners of any of the original games get the bundle for free, according to PC Gamer. The GOG Database lists the package as available for Windows only, and Doom Wiki notes that the older collection was delisted just before the re-release. For the full picture of the game, see the main Heretic card.
