The Elder Scrolls: Arena

aka: Arena, The Elder Scrolls Chapter One: Arena
Moby ID: 803
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is a first-person action role-playing game in which the protagonist must rescue the Emperor Uriel Septim VII from his dimensional prison by recovering the eight pieces of the Staff of Chaos. The emperor's position has been usurped by impersonator Jagar Tharn, whose slain apprentice rallies the protagonist in his dreams to find the eight pieces of the staff and return the status quo.

It is the first chapter in the Elder Scrolls series and the first game that is set in the fictional world of Tamriel. The game features 3D environments, with sprites representing non-playable characters and enemies. In the beginning of the game the player chooses the race for the protagonist, based on his or her home province. Each race has its benefits: for example, Redguards from the province Hammerfell have physical attack bonuses. There is no skill system; leveling up occurs after a sufficient amount of experience points has been accumulated. The player is free to raise any of the protagonist's main attributes by allocating the points gained with the level.

Unlike later games in the series the player can travel through almost all of Tamriel, instead of being restricted to certain provinces. There are over 400 cities, towns and villages to explore, as well as many magical items and spells to create. The player can walk endlessly in any direction as more and more land will be procedurally generated. Walking manually however never allows the player to reach other cities; the fast travel feature must be used for this. The player is free to go where he or she wants. The story itself is resolved in a linear fashion, although the locations of items is randomly determined at the start of the game.

Melee combat is performed through mouse gestures and spells are cast using a menu interface. The player controls only a single character, which happens in real-time. In the wild and in dungeons the player can expect opposition from enemies which need to be defeated and who drop loot. In the cities NPCs can be found, some will barter or provide other services to the player.

The CD-ROM release features speech in cutscenes and additional rendered sequences that the floppy version does not include.

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Credits (DOS version)

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Lead Design
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Graphics / Artwork
Additional Graphics / Artwork
Music
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Playtesting
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 24 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 60 ratings with 7 reviews)

Made to look foolish by Morrowind, unfortunately.

The Good
The first-person RPG was quite a revolutionary idea that has been used in future titles like Deus Ex, System Shock and Arena's sequels, Daggerfall and Morrowind.

The Bad
NPCs have the personality of a particularly boring cheese sandwich, the control and journal system gets on my nerves and plays slow on DOSBox (you can increase the speed but it messes up the sound) and made unfortunately inferior by Morrowind.

The Bottom Line
This would be a good game but I played it after playing Morrowind and the whole experience was made worse.

DOS · by Neon Hammerite (35) · 2005

Beautiful world. Now for a story to go with it.

The Good
The world - the first-person perspective, 3-D world with day and night, seasons, weather (it rains! it snows!) just blew me away. In the towns, I could see building reflections in the puddles on the street. Sometimes I'd just stay in one place and simply watch the world go by (best at night - what a busy sky!). After I lost interest in the plot, I continued only to see what different kinds of places the designers had come up with.

The Bad
The plot - been there, done that. And while it is true that nothing forces you to do any particular thing, it's also true that the plot will not advance unless you accomplish certain specific goals in a certain specific order. And those goals are all the same goal, repeated eight times. If the game is played again from the start, the quest items will appear in different locations, but that doesn't make the game "non-linear", IMHO (or interesting enough to play again).

The endgame - that was easy. Did I simply have the best spell for that job? My character wasn't even the best spell user class!

The user interface - I'm not new at this kind of game, and I still died several times before I figured out how to even begin to defend my character against attack. And having to switch between several screens to review little pieces of information was a pain.

The riddles - the problem is not the riddles per se (some of which are quite fun), but that fact that if you can't solve one, you can't advance in the game. There's no way around needing what's behind the riddle-locked door. Another feature of linear game play.

The travel - why can't I walk from one town to another if I want to? There's inns, farms and dungeons along the way! That would be letting me do what I want, a feature of non-linear gameplay!

The bugs - once in a while the game would freeze up. Saving often helps here. The character status symbols aren't always current, which can mislead you into thinking your character is okay when s/he isn't.



The Bottom Line
It's as if, having come up with a rich, detailed fantasy world far beyond anything that had been seen before, the designers were at a loss as to what to do with it. The game itself is not nearly the quality that the environment is. The designers almost admit as much in the manual, writing that you don't have to pursue the quest if you don't want to, but can instead run around the environment killing the peasants or whatever. Maybe so, but that doesn't lead anywhere - what's the point?

Perhaps that's what they really mean by "non-linear".

DOS · by anton treuenfels (34) · 2001

Hands down best CRPG even released, bar none!

The Good
This game has everything a great CRPG should have: cool weapons, varied enemies, diverse locations, large areas to explore, secrets to discover, and a sense of actually accomplishing something. The sounds are haunting, the music is appropriate, and the combat system is easy and involving.

The Bad
Bugs, bugs, buggy-bugs. This game crashes more often that a car with no steering wheel, often while trying to save the game before doing something you know will probably cause a crash. The graphics are also dated but to be expected from a game this old.

The Bottom Line
Despite the things I DIDN'T like I will always come back to Arena. This game gives the player full immersion into a world rich and vast. You don't PLAY the character, you BECOME the character. I've never played a game for so long or with such intensity... I started playing it in 1994 when it was the first CD based game I'd ever purchased and now, ten years later, I'm within reach of the final staff piece. No matter what game has come out, I always go back to Arena... even Morrowind (The Elder Scrolls III) takes a back seat to the graphically inferior, but better in all other regards, original. Do yourself a favor and buy this game!

DOS · by Paul Kostrzewa (13) · 2004

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Skill system in Arena? MrFlibble (18144) Jul 21, 2013
Release date on main summary Izmir Egal (73) Jul 29, 2012
Term of development. Virgil (8563) Nov 1, 2007

Trivia

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

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Related Sites +

  • Official Elder Scrolls Website
    Bethesda Softworks official site for the Elder Scrolls series.
  • Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages!
    A wiki page that is dedicated to the Elder Scrolls series. It a great source for hints and backround information concerning the Elder Scrolls saga. Just about everything can be found here.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 803
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by faceless.

Windows Apps added by Plok. Windows added by Rik Hideto.

Additional contributors: Blackhandjr, Isak, Iggi, SGruber, Patrick Bregger.

Game added January 27, 2000. Last modified March 15, 2024.