Apart from the 10 main story quests, Arena featured a number of randomized quest types, which all boiled down to trudging across yet another procedurally generated dungeon. Arena had a huge open world with few meaningful things to do. The real change here was in terms of density. Its sequel, Daggerfall, proved that Bethesda was onto great things.ĭaggerfall doubled down on Arena's innovations to deliver an experience that was just better in every way. It also introduced players to the hallmarks of future Elder Scrolls titles: wide-open spaces, exploration, and complete freedom. However, Arena did establish the lore and setting for future Elder Scrolls titles. This was clearly a first effort from a developer finding its footing in the RPG space. While the open world itself was nothing to write home about, the dungeon crawling experience was immersive for 1994.Īrena doesn't hold up today with its barren world, basic 3D graphics, and limited quest variety. Arena's first-person combat and exploration drew heavily from titles like Ultima Underworld. Just about everything else was created by the algorithm, using a limited number of premade assets. The continent of Tamriel featured only 17 hand-crafted dungeons.
This was something of a double-edged sword, though.
However, they were far more limited in terms of scale and interactivity.īy using procedural generation, Bethesda was able to create an immense open world, almost as large as the continental US. Titles like Ultima Underworld and Wizardry 7 superficially resemble Arena. The early and mid-90s were a heyday for first-person dungeon crawlers. Bethesda eventually scrapped the arena idea completely and doubled down on dungeon crawling and questing across an immense open world. Along the way, they'd do randomly generated side quests for NPCs.Īs development progressed on the game, the side quests and exploration became increasingly important. The Elder Scrolls: Arena players were originally meant to travel from city to city, fighting in different arenas and progressing to the Imperial City. In the early 1990s, Bethesda was a fledgling developer that collaborated with EA on John Madden Football, then it set out to create a fantasy arena fighting game. But there's plenty to discover and plenty to love across a quarter-century of Elder Scrolls history. No, "Skyrim 2" (cringe) probably isn't coming out anytime soon. But, as the franchise turns 26, it's a good idea to take a look back at how things got started.
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