Play Heretic - Shadow of the Serpent Riders Online

Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders came out in 1996 as part of the MS-DOS Classic Games series, developed by Raven Software and published by id Software. It was one of those mid-90s shooters that ran on the Doom engine, offering a dark fantasy twist on the familiar formula. You could tell it was from that era just by the pixelated textures and the way it loaded level by level.

You play as a lone elf, armed first with a simple staff and later with more powerful magical weapons like the Phoenix Rod and the Hellstaff. Your goal is to fight through hordes of undead and monstrous creatures across five interconnected episodes, clearing room after room of enemies while hunting for keys and switches. The level design encourages careful exploration, with plenty of hidden passages and environmental puzzles to solve. Combat is fast and often unforgiving, demanding quick reflexes to dodge projectiles and manage your limited resources. It feels tense and immersive, especially when you're low on health and surrounded in some forgotten crypt.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".