The size of the play area was also surprising. First version in (many) floppies, later expanded with dubbed dialogues.Ī moment sacred to many: the creation of the character. What surprised at the time was the day / night cycle, or rather, the way in which the behavior of the NPCs varied: because a setting sun was nothing new at all. It was supposed to be a hack’n’slash, as the title suggests, but instead turned into a role-playing campaign the market was pursued, but with the desire to create something new. But the passion was there, and fortunately the same goes for the masters: Looking Glass Studios, the Abyss of Ultima, of course.
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The random drops, the multitude of cities, the pacing with a focus on patient and methodical exploration, are elements that have come down to the latest TOS.ġ994, therefore, is a software house that first ventured into sports titles, and that for this very reason did not play at home. Sounds that cancel each other out, narrative vagueness, inconsistency in the structure of the dungeons, controls that overlap: to say that it is a prohibitive title, especially in its timing, is little, but not recognizing the ambition with which it was designed would be serious lack. You can play it digitally for free, on MS-DOS, and we must recognize that trying the challenge is more a choice dictated by an archaeological spirit, rather than a retrogamer. The maps had two zoom levels: this is the closest, limited to the region, but you could also see the whole of Tamriel.Īrena began all this, opening the way to the following (decidedly more mature). All NPCs, and consequently us passing visitors, know that the world around them is in motion. How many times, wandering in the North, have we heard of Imperials, of Cyrodiil, of Dagoth Ur: the red mountain. Just like the constellation of the Serpent, in the Firmament of the saga, the world with its political intrigues is there, not too hidden, ready to reveal itself one Ancient Scroll at a time. If we await the sixth chapter of The Elder Scrolls with trepidation, we are waiting to return under the skies of Tamriel, with its constellations of unspeakable secrets and its necromancers in the service of mad Daedra, it is thanks to a masterful work of worldbuilding.
We know the importance but also the dangers (including artificial longevity) of a vast and alive world, with its randomness, with its procedural variations: thanks, among many others, to Daggerfall. Looking at the CRPG panorama, we also know the importance of the external map in the management of the transition phases between a visit to the city and a descent into a dungeon: yes For example, Oblivion and Morrowind taught it, and looking at Piranha Bytes also Gothic. We all know the cultural impact that Skyrim had, in the not too distant 2011. TOS lived on the Sword & Sorcery imagery of those years. The first person is the favorite shot, and if what we are digging up is closer to King’s Field and Shadow Tower (of the dear From Software), for overall sensations, it is above all in the western role-playing games of Bethesda and Obsidian that we find the evolutions of those first steps of man become steps of the High Rock Giants. Interposed between us and our objectives doors to unlock, skeletons (how many skeletons!) And slime: ours the task of finding alternative routes or new tools. Traps, monsters, lava floors, muffled sound effects. Huge mazes, pits and cracks in the walls. Something was changing, game engines were getting more powerful, and pixel art was accompanied by glimpses of 3D.Īs it happened in the paper tables, after the creation (when there was) of one’s avatar, one catapulted into a world of mystery and magic, made closer and no less fascinating by the graphic immediacy. We and our keyboard, for the first time, as Conan the Cimmerian or Solomon Kane. Ultima Underworld, Legends of Valor and Megami Tensei in the East, are among the very first examples of first-person RPG, in which a certain freedom of interpretation (today reductive, for the time enormous) was accompanied by a high rate of visual identification. In the ’80s, the role-playing game pushed to find a videogame form. The Elder Scrolls turns 25, and if its mountains and valleys are familiar to us, it’s thanks to Arena, which thanks to its vastness has managed to become a cult (a real long sell) and evolve, not without effort, into something more. 25 years of The Elder Scrolls: Arena – article
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