heXen:Edge of Chaos will be a new and free game, based on the original Hexen game which was developed by id Software and Raven Software. Edge of Chaos is being developed by a team of fans who have always loved the original Hexen since it came out. In fact, most of us spent countless hours with the entire series. When id Software released Doom3, we immediately saw immense potential in the engine itself; the 'Hell' maps gave us the inspiration to make a hack-and-slash game based, primarily, on the original Hexen.
Fantastic piece. Feels like a mixture of Hexen and Hexen 2: environments are reminiscent of opening hub from Hexen 2, while overall feel of combat and movement and lack of leveling are closer to Hexen 1. Individual maps feel larger that those from any Hexen game. Great visuals, excellent atmosphere: from burning ruined city to misty swamp filled with impaled corpses of unfortunate humans, this demo hub managed to capture that ominous dark fantasy atmosphere of original games quite well. This demo is also quite a bit more story-rich that any of original games, with story being told trough bunch of journal pages and letters scattered throughout the maps.
Gameplay, as I have said, is more reminiscent of Hexen 2. While player has only one class and two weapons at his disposal, both of them pack a good punch, and there is loads of classic Hexen pick-ups lying around. Enemy variety is decent for what is meant to be a first part of large campaign, with decent balance of melee grunts, flying and fast monsters.
All in all, great piece of work by enormously devoted Hexen fans, one that really deserves to be played by any Hexen fan anywhere. I still hope that complete Edge of Chaos game will be released after all, one day. World deserves another Hexen.