Heavy Gear

Heavy Gear II Downloads

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DDrawCompat-v0.5.4 - This is a Direct X wrapper that has given me the best results in running Heavy Gear II in the modern era. You can download v0.5.4 from here at Local Ditch Gaming, which has worked well for me currently (2025). Check DDrawCompat at Github for the latest versions. Also, check the Heavy Gear II Install Guide to find out how to set this up.

Heavy Gear II Graphics Fix - Able to see through the ground after reinstalling the game? Try this as a fix. Or, maybe use a DDrawCompat as suggested in the Heavy Gear II Install Guide. Originally from HotClaw on the GOG forums.

Heavy Gear II Music Fix - The graphics are fine, but you can't get any in-game music? Install this patch to fix it. Developed by dippy-dipper on the Vogons forums, you can find it mirrored here. Oh, you'll need to manually rip the music from the game disc. Or...

Heavy Gear II Music - The mission music from Heavy Gear II lies here. Drop it in the Music folder when using the previous music fix. Or instead, download just to hear the game's music.

Heavy Gear II Custom Keyboard Bindings - This is a WASD, mouse and keyboard mapping of the game's controls, based on the config found in the repack. To use it, extract and replace the bindings.def file in your Heavy Gear II install directory. This will override your settings, so back up your original bindings.def file first!

Heavy Gear 2 Custom Keyboard Bindings

Custom Keyboard Bindings Keycard - Trying these custom bindings and wondering where everything is? Use this keycard as a quick reference. Note: These are for the custom bindings above, not the original keys.

Servers.dat - Not seeing any servers show up when you try to play online? Then download this file and extract it to your Heavy Gear 2 install directory. It will replace the existing servers.dat file.

Multiplayer Maps

Four add-on maps were released for Heavy Gear II on Activision's website. Download them individually here. Installation instructions are included in the zip files, but the general idea is to put the .ANN and .txt files in the mission folder while the .mr~ file goes into the terrain folder.

  • Erech - Bitter rivalries have been going on for ages between Erech and Nineveh, two city-states on Terra Nova. Most concern the rich oil caches found under the local terrain. For the past several months Erech has had a price war with Nineveh. Now tensions are running high. It was inevitable that a fight would break out.
  • Bassault - Two factions have split from the Humanist Alliance. Both consider this territory to be their own. A dispute over this area was bound to happen. The victor today enjoys all the spoils.
  • Jjarena - This is part of the CNCS training installation. The 18th HG Regiment of the 50th Brigade regularly trains here. They are known as the Busybees. Competition matches between gear pilots are usually held here in the Arena.
  • Vhills - Located along the border of the Mekong Dominion and the Southern Republic, the Veril Hills has once again become a battleground between the two political powers.

Level Editor - This is the level editor that Activision released on their website. I don't think it really works on modern computers, but it's here if you want to try it out.

Heavy Gear II Demo

Heavy Gear II Demo - This demo is from several months before the final release of Heavy Gear II and features a unique mission not found in the main game, plus a different HUD and other changes. To run this one on Windows 10, I had to use the excellent otvdm, which allows 16-bit installers to work in a 64-bit Windows install. After that, you may have to use similar compatibility options as the main game to get this to run. You can still view a ton of demo info on the old Heavy Gear II site via the Internet Archive.

Mods & Utilities

Unciv - Mirrored here at Local Ditch Gaming, use this to extract the ZFS files in the game and view their contents (many shell images). The file is from David Gow's unciv: An Uncivilized File Extractor for Civilization: Call to Power and originally meant for Civilization: Call to Power. Since many Activision games use the ZFS format, it also works for Heavy Gear II.

QBMS - Mirrored at Local Ditch, Luigi Auriemma's Quick BMS can be used to extract the .prj files to access the game's texture and sound data. You'll need to run it with a BMS file. Download prj.bms and its needed batch file. Modify the paths in the batch to match your qbms and Heavy Gear II directories, then run. Information is from AlexKimov's Heavy Gear File Formats page on Github, but reposted here for ease of use.

2/15/25