The Elder Scrolls: Arena

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The Elder Scrolls: Arena

Developer(s)	Bethesda Softworks
Publisher(s)	Bethesda Softworks
Release date(s)	1994
Genre(s)	First-person RPG
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: T
Platform(s)	MS-DOS
Media	Floppy disk, CD-ROM

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is a first-person computer role-playing game for MS-DOS, developed by Bethesda Softworks and released in 1994. In 2004, a downloadable version of the game was made available free of charge as part of the 10th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls series, but newer systems may require an emulator such as DOSBox to run it, as Arena is a DOS based program.

Like its sequels, it takes place in the continent of Tamriel, complete with wilderness, dungeons, a spell creation system that allows players to mix various spell effects into a new spell as long as they have the money to pay for it, and numerous other game features that were ahead of its time.

Another notable part of Arena is its tendency to be unforgiving towards newer players. It is easy to die in the starting dungeon, as powerful enemies can be encountered if the player lingers too long. However, this effect slowly withers away as the player becomes more powerful and more aware of the threats that loom everywhere. Even Ken Rolston, lead designer of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, says he started the game at least twenty times and only got out of the beginning dungeon once. [1]

1 Gameplay
2 Story
3 Errors
4 Floppy Disk, CD-ROM and Deluxe editions
5 External links

[edit] Gameplay

Arena is noted for its large environment, which is significantly larger than its sequels, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but smaller than that of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. This is due to the game's randomly generated areas, which allow for large numbers of different combinations for each area.

The game is played from a first-person perspective. Combat is performed by using the mouse and dragging the cursor across the screen to attack if a melee weapon is used.

[edit] Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Emperor, Uriel Septim VII has been imprisoned in another dimension (in a copy of the Black Horse Courier in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, this dimension is revealed to be Oblivion) and impersonated by Imperial Battlemage Jagar Tharn. The only way to bring him back is to find the eight pieces of the Staff of Chaos. After the pieces have been collected, the hero battles with Tharn in the Imperial city. Ria Silmane, just prior to the start of the game, is apprentice to Jagar Tharn. During his usurpation of the throne, Tharn is unable to corrupt his apprentice and so he murders her. She is able to hold herself together long enough to direct the player's character how to escape from slow death in the dungeons through a teleportation device called a shift gate. Past that point she lacks the power to manifest physically and appears to the player in dreams. The central quest requires the player to obtain various artifacts. Each time such an item is found, Silmane appears the next time the player rests to provide the general location of the next such item.

Part of this story is found in Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion within the book series "The Real Barenziah".

Arena is a part of four of the games in the Elder Scrolls series.

Spoilers end here.

The next game in the series is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, released in 1996.

[edit] Errors

In the opening dialogue displayed when a player starts a new game, Uriel Septim VII is referred to as Uriel Septim VI. This is probably because the intro cutscene of Arena was created before the rest of the main storyline, and the creators of the game forgot to take it out.

[edit] Floppy Disk, CD-ROM and Deluxe editions

Arena was originally released on CD-ROM and 3.5" floppy disk. The CD-ROM edition is the more advanced of the two, featuring enhanced speech for some characters and CGI video sequences.

In late 1994, Arena was re-released in a special "Deluxe Edition" package, containing the CD-ROM patched to the latest version, a mousepad with the map of Tamriel printed on it, and the "Codex Scientia"; an all-encompassing, in-depth hint book. Boxed copies of this edition can fetch upwards of US$100 on eBay.

The version that was released as freeware by Bethesda Softworks in 2004 is the 3.5" floppy disk version, not the CD-ROM edition.