Hexen - Berserker Difficulty Speedrun in

Runner: Zero-Master
Date: 2016-07-24
IWAD: Hexen.wad
Difficulty: Skill 4
Source Port: Crispy Doom v3.2
Approximate Time: 26:45
I discovered a really insane trick for Hexen, the void glide!
I watched JCD and Ch0wW do coop runs for Hexen almost a week ago which convinced me to play this game for the first time in 20 years. I will admit that I never finished this game when I first played it, infact I never got past the first hub. While I wasn't stuck at any part for too long in my recent playthrough, it did strike me as something that would be difficult for a child, so I don't feel too bad about never completing this game back then.
The game is obviously very similar to doom, but there are several differences, like jumping. Very few skips have been found, most notably the one in the first Hub where you use jump to activate some switches, besides that there were very minor things. I know that void glides and fence clips are possible in doom, but because of the differences in Hexen I had no idea if anything like that would work in this game.
In my first playthrough I noticed the 32 unit gaps in Hub 3, so as an expert in doom glides I got them quickly. The glide and fence clip in Hub 3 were already discovered by JCD and Ch0wW and so that was one of the most recent tricks found.
I talked to Ch0wW when he mentioned that there was a skip in Hub 4, but they did not manage to do it very often. So I independently discovered the fence clip, and initially I thought I just needed to keep the Wings of Wrath artifact from the previous level to grab the key. It turns out that the game removes this item when you leave the Hub, so for a moment I figured I had wasted my time as I couldn't grab it in single player. Then I got the idea to use the Dark Servant artifact and jump on top of him, luckily that worked out perfectly!
Now for the most insane trick I'll ever discover, almost an entire skip of Hub 5!
Looking at the map geometry of the starting area for Hub 5 I thought maybe a void glide would be possible, but again because of differences in Hexen compared to Doom I was not able to do them. There are usually 3 things you need to check for when you want a void glide to be useful. The first one is if you can actually move anywhere once you get into the void, which in this case you can. The second thing to check is if you can actually do anything useful from the void, like in e2m6 for doom you can hit the exit switch. In Hexen there is no exit switch so I would need to clip back into the map, and by accident I woke up the monster by the exit using cheats and managed to use him to get back inside! I forgot about the Disc of Repulsion and without cheats instead managed to use the Porkalator through the wall initially, but I had to be in a very specific spot for that to work, the disc however is very easy to use to wake up the monster inside.
So with those being possible and the map geometry being there, I spent a few hours running against a wall trying different classes, different speeds, different angles with and without boots of speed and with and without jumping... and finally with monsters when I eventually managed to clip outside! I had no idea if it was even possible, but once I got it the first time, it was all a matter of finding the most consistent way of doing it. I use the Boots of Speed with a specific angle, jumping and monster position for it to work. Then I can simply exit the level, skipping right to the final level!
While it is possible to record demos in Hexen, there are several problems with it. Besides I didn't want to invest too much time into this so I went for an RTA time and just made the video directly while playing, so you will also notice me using both saves and loads.
This was my very first attempt, so needless to say it's completely terrible. However, almost 2 minutes faster than the previous record by Cubeface, so it was worth the upload :) You can tell I struggle even with my key bindings at times, I changed them around a bit since I didn't want to reach across my keyboard to change\use artifacts, but I didn't spend enough time with it.
I just wanted to show of these really cool tricks for Hexen, I don't think I will be doing more attempts as it would be best to spend more time optimizing the route first. The time it would take for me to properly do that would unfortunately be too much.
You might be wondering why I am looking at the minimap at around 16:00, the reason is the game will crash if I look straight forward on my way out the door! Also I have no idea why the intermission screens are messed up in crispy doom.

[@42percenthealth]

"You have played this game too long, mortal." Funny thing to say to a guy who has conquered 3/5 of your world in under 20 minutes, LOL! :-P Excellent run, buddy!

[@Annokh]

He's a master of many worlds, sure he knows how many runs it took :P

[@mattsmith5253]

This game can be tedious and monotonous, but it's charming overall. Like a lot of fantasy games in this era, Hexen is colorful and vibrant with a lot of nice details to environment, character, and prop design; the architecture is well done also.

[@radscorpion8]

That's also what I like about older games, when you played them you knew they were generally going to take a long time to complete so you get a lot of value out of them. As graphics improved I think it cost more dev resources to build worlds of the same length. Only one exception to this was the original half life, which looked pretty good at the time

[@CDeeez94]

Thank you for reminding me of this game. I haven’t seen it since my childhood

[@Cubeface]

That's AWESOME! Fantastic job finding those glides. Now I'm wondering why I never thought of that :D You're amazing, Zero Master!

[@ZeroMaster]

Thanks cubeface! as you probably noticed the rest of the run wasn't that great, so someone should improve it :)

[@fedupN]

Woof. I sucked at this game but I loved the lore and playing it with a friend. It amazing you could play through it so quickly.

[@Valduria]

20:23 You bat-riding son of a gun, you fiery demon hopping operator.

[@Spectans1]

This took me a week to finish and you did it in less than 30 mins, insane.

[@tomjensen2572]

I love the riding the effrit up in castle of grief. Very entertaining speedrun!

[@Dollar_Store_Cacodemon]

Well... that's one way to kill a Heresiarch! Its insane to see this awesome, brutally difficult game I spent soooo long as a kid playing get demolished in under half an hour lol

[@jimmmyz169]

My heart can't take much more of these cherished childhood memories!

[@daemonprince13]

Do you think you'll ever speedrun Heretic?

[@ChuckRuledTheWorld]

He did! kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHiQXqCIqrqIgKc

[@ActivelyVacant]

22:45 When you go from a boss enemy in one game, to a platform in the next.

[@martin_323]

That wasn't an enemy but a Dark Servant item. You can spawn those to help you kill monsters. To transport to the platform on the same level he used a Chaos Device. Chaos Device teleports you to the beginning of a level.

[@umbaupause]

@@martin_323 Even though these comments are very old... The Maulotaur is a boss from Heretic, which was reused as an item in Hexen.

[@Ch0wW]

Well, the run is just AWESOME. Congrats mate :D

[@alaididnalid7660]

How the hell do you remember your way through those mazes lol

[@vicioenviciado6999]

Este juego tiene demasiados puzzles y terminarlo en 30 min es de locos Felicidades amigo

[@1G0R03]

These sound effects are so meaty! I fuckin love it :)

[@sotiriskosmas7133]

why do you say this ?

[@jordanmcminn998]

The enemies at the beginning really didn't want you to speed run

[@Kepesk]

I forgot how much of the screen the hud takes up in vanilla. Damn...

[@KAZUNARl]

they made a remake of doom... why not of hexen?

[@user-fr4ex1ez4h]

Big explorable levels with puzzles? Modern gamers are too stupid for this.

[@CMONCMON007]

That would be incredible. Love this series

[@CMONCMON007]

@Shallex I think its also Activision has regulated Raven Software to only doing CoD maps. Which is unfortunate they made some great games,I think last game they made was Singularity back in 2010

[@CMONCMON007]

@Shallex that makes sense. Cause the earlier games were produced and published by id, now they with Bethesda...and Hexen 2 published by Activision

[@romanmary9155]

and heretic too

[@MrCantStopTheRobot]

Funny hearing all the sounds and design styles that LucasArts recycled into Dark Forces.

[@1G0R03]

Wait did they really do that?

[@MrCantStopTheRobot]

@@1G0R03 I'm too lazy to check it again, but off the top of my head, the punch is the same, and I think a bottle / magical item pickup in Hexen is used as the item pickup in DF. Just listen.

[@maiyannah]

MrCantStopTheRobot Many of the Doom and related games used a common set of Lucas published stock sounds. Decino had some good info about it in his video about Doom sounds.

[@victorhugor.m.1554]

24:37 is that...r-a-p-e?

[@dazzer7986]

Scythe II Run would be awesome :D

[@0ktober]

Totally agreed, that or Hell Revealed I or II.

[@user-jm3xl7rg5k]

Standing on the Maulotaur to get the Axe key?? Nice )))

[@ayutac4056]

Zero Master using Save Games? My, what a discovery xD

[@undead.rising]

Arguably then, the Shadow Wood hub is the hardest hub, as it is the least-skippable.

[@sarpsarp8987]

I could not even finish this game on the easiest difficulty but I finished all 5 episodes of Heretic on the hardest difficulty. Is it funny?

[@loupax]

Haven’t played Hexen yet but was that a bell of awakening??

[@KnifePlushie]

This game would be too scary for me to play

[@michaelpaglia3219]

Awesome..hexen .haven't seen it in many years

[@user-fu1jy7jr3z]

Can you complete Hexen on titan, please? I think you can do this.

[@granatengustl]

Nice run.

[@xMrGreeneJeansx]

Good run!

[@KingHenselt]

Крутая игра

[@YvesVroemen]

so much work for two screenshots with text. Times have changed.. difficulty hasn't I guess.. This difficulty is monsterous!

[@nurhanazhari1644]

To this day I still dont understand how this game works.

[@escalate1629]

You got Hexen speedrun but no Heretic?)

[@chuck7538]

Nice video!

[@andrezinholee]

Esse jogo marcou minha infância! Hexen, Heretic, Doom, Rise of The Triad, Duke Nukem 3d, Shadow Warrior, Blood, Quake 1, e Team Fortress Classic(Dentro do Quake, não do Half Life) Hje estou jogando Overwatch e não tenho saco pra C.S GO não.

[@andrearovenski]

Plan on submitting this to speedrun.com?

[@ZeroMaster]

I don't plan on making any more runs outside of doom, so I can't be bothered to.

[@questionmark194]

Hi cyber

[@ikagura]

I need to play Heretic and Hexen somedays

[@Kenonrus]

Hi, how did you run hexen on the Crispy Doom v3.2 ???

[@sarpsarp8987]

Is a hardest difficulty speedrun coming for Heretic and Hexen?

[@ar_xiv]

do deathkings! I thought it was a better set of levels

[@paweo.8193]

What did you play this game on ?

[@siavashdavani6169]

Why didn’t play “Heretic shadow of the serpent riders” ? That was so nice like Doom and Hexen, you can try it

[@WhiteMagicRaven]

@Zero Master look "HeXen: Beyond Heretic Fighter in 8:57 WR" search in youtube, i think you can learn even more

[@bradleydollin9560]

Legend.

[@duncangarnett1976]

Is this stretched to 16:9? i play through gzdoom and it looks better than this.

[@bostjanbizjak3952]

Best game Like

[@madunwerkstatt3093]

oooh my god, i can't even complete this game on lowest difficulty setting.

[@isscaredofspoons4779]

Definitely wasn't close to dying at the end or anything...

[@FortyTheorem]

Haha moving to Hexen on me huh? lol jk This was fun Zero.

[@smaariseth]

Got these games on Steam, but my computer can`t play them :( Sad seeing as it wouuld be sooo cool to play them again after all these years!

[@ZeroMaster]

I'm not sure what the issue is, but have you tried using a sourceport like crispy-hexen? you can download it here (it says doom but it includes heretic and hexen) www.greffrath.com/~fabian/crispy-doom_3.2.zip

[@onlyelectro8924]

Get the games out of your steam Folder. download Zdoom and place the files in the Zdoom map folder. open the Zdoom.exe file and play the game. very simple

[@smaariseth]

Amazing! This worked like a charm! Thanks!

[@ikagura]

@@onlyelectro8924 GZDoom because Zdoom is kinda dead now

[@tenacious645]

Dude you run Hexen too? nice...How do I get Doom and doom2 to run on the competition source port? I want to be able to do glides and submit times, but zdoom doesn't seem to be good for either of those things. I have the Iwads for doom2 but for whatever reason, the source port you have listed under your Doom 2 run WONT let me play the game. I select it can hit run and it just does nothing.

[@ZeroMaster]

Just this one run... I've never ran into that problem before so I can't help you, you can try a different sourceport like prboom+, chocolate doom or crispy doom if you can't get it to work. I'd recommend prboom+ and reading parts of this thread on doomworld forums: www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-speed-demos/18410-welcome-to-the-demos-forum-prboom-plus-usage-wad-and-irc-links-general-info/

[@tenacious645]

Zero Master Thanks man, look forward to doom runs in the future.

[@13Olish]

Hi Tenacious, Prboom is a really nice source port but it is quite a challenge to glide when compared to CNDoom. The graphics and fluidity with Chocolate doom are quite bad. The best option is still CNDoom. Have you tried to download it on another link?

[@tenacious645]

13Olish I have, but i've had trouble finding reliable links that I trust. I'm not sure if it's the source port or the WADs...I was inclined to think it's the source port because the WADs play on Zdoom without error.

[@janglad6158]

If you have spare time go for some Heretic too :) you will learn it fast!

[@jaromor8808]

i feel sorry for the past Me :)

[@MaxRideWizardLord]

fighter is too overpowered for speedrun

[@ar_xiv]

What’s the glowing flask at 1:50 ? Never seen that before

[@ameralkhateeb5038]

its a quartz flask spawning.

[@unikvseru]

ТОП

[@user-fr4ex1ez4h]

Which port do u use?

[@user-fr4ex1ez4h]

Do you want make TAS speedrun?

[@RomanceJones]

Why didnt i know about this game XD

[@Annokh]

It was absolutely outstanding for its time. I played it several years after its release and it still managed to blow me away with its level design complexity. Granted, it's a matter of opinion (not everyone is a fan of "pull a lever, go see what changed on another map" design philosophy), but still.

[@GuilhermeOliveira-sz7mj]

Com certeza vou tentar

[@juangiraldo5108]

18:59 how???

[@PerfectionismTech]

Bugs with how collision was implemented when standing on top of monsters/decorations was added.

[@arv_is]

how old is this game

[@SilverMiner]

Why not titan?

[@user-fv5fq]

Wait... How is it possible???

[@mysteriousstranger2287]

This is wonderful. (This opinion could be expressed with a simple click on the "Like" button, but I think a comment carries more weight.)

[@SickzorOne]

11:57 imo one of the worst switches in the game, who puts a switch in a fireplace? CMON MAP DESIGNERS GIVE ME A BREAK.

[@123TauruZ321]

This game uses the same snarling sound from Duke Nukem 3d from those furry tiger striped monsters that shoot with pistols. What a shameless ripoff.

[@666DeaDMaN999]

bugs using is like a cheating. this speedrun is cheating

[@davidchez513]

dead_man yeah, whatever man :D

[@mada1082]

Bugs are the foundation of speedrunning... if it's in the game then it's fair game.

[@666DeaDMaN999]

Cheats also are in the game

[@mada1082]

dead_man cheats are explicitly banned though. Bugs are utilized in thousands of speedruns and are accepted as legitimate. Like in LoZOOT where to speedrun you fight Ganon in kid form with a deku stick.

[@ikagura]

Haha what? Do you know the rules of an any% run?