The Elder Scrolls: Arena

Development

Arena was at first, not going to be a RPG, but instead a gladiator style game. Someone came up with the RPG idea, and it caught.

Freeware release

To coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Elder Scrolls series in 2004, Bethesda Softworks released the first game, Arena, as freeware. It can be downloaded from the Elder Scrolls website

Inspiration

The Elder Scrolls: Arena was primarily inspired by a collection of pen and paper RPGs, the Ultima Underworld series, and the first-person RPG Legends of Valour.

Translations

A German version of the game was announced and the box distributed in Germany even included a sticker and post card offering to exchange the game for the German version once available. However no localized versions were ever released. One reason may have been that the game's program code is using fixed text lengths, making it very difficult to find equal length translations for other languages.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • May 1995 (Issue #130) – Role-Playing Game of the Year

Information also contributed by Agent 5 and Isak