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Bethesda has allowed fans to download the first two entries in The Elder Scrolls series for free for years now with Arena and Daggerfall both available to download on the developer’s website.
However, for Daggerfall, the community banded together to create Daggerfall Unity, an awesome, modern remake of the game with HD rendering, modern controls, mod support and much more. Now, 31 years after its release, fans are working to bring back the series’ original entry, The Elder Scrolls: Arena, in the very same vein.
The Elder Scrolls: Arena Remake in the works
Dubbed OpenTESArena, fans are working on an “in-progress modern open-source engine” that will allow gamers to experience a faithful recreation of the series’ debut entry on modern hardware with modern controls.
“The goal is to replicate all aspects of the original game with a clean-room approach while making quality-of-life changes along the way,” the team explained in their GitHub Page.
At the time of writing, the fan remake of Arena is still quite early in development. With the introduction of “jolt physics” to the open-source game engine, a faithful movement system has been implemented that allows players to “climb out of chasms, jump, and swim”.
In the engine’s most recent update, enemies are now killable but their AI isn’t functional, and players can pick up items and use keys on doors. Citizens can also be found with their names attached and can be killed, but crime systems have not been implemented.
Despite the massive popularity of Skyrim, and now the recent Oblivion Remastered, many gamers haven’t played The Elder Scrolls: Arena. In fact, even with the fan remake, it’s a game that the majority of modern gamers probably won’t click with, but the fact that fans are making a modern way to play the sadly obscure entry into the brilliant RPG series is an amazing step forward for preservation.
Admittedly, I’m not a huge Arena fan – in fact, I told Elder Scrolls creator Ted Peterson as much when I interviewed him on our podcast – but it’s a game I have a lot of respect for. A lot of the fundamentals of the series today are present in that original title such as doing an activity to level up that skill, detailed lore books and complete player freedom.
It will definitely be a while until OpenTESArena is complete and fully playable, but it’s important to support these types of projects. While Bethesda may give out the original Arena for free, playing it via DosBox isn’t ideal, and these projects are what keep games alive for new audiences for decades to come.
For more Elder Scrolls coverage, read about the making of the series’ obscure multiplayer spin-off game Shadowkey and how its final 36-hours of development was absolute Hell for everyone involved.
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