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OpenTESArena is an open-source engine re-implementation for "The Elder Scrolls: Arena" by Bethesda Softworks, being developed from scratch in modern C++. It requires a copy of the original game data available on Steam, GOG, or the Bethesda website in order to play.
When work started in 2016, technical documentation about Arena was very hard to find, but thanks to the efforts of several contributors, this wiki now contains a valuable library of information regarding all aspects of the game, and continues to be revised from time to time.
Arena's manual is an excellent resource for understanding the game's rules and design. However, not all stated values are accurately reproduced in-game, and as such, the behavior of the executable is preferred for decision-making, and new quality-of-life changes are based off that as well.
This project is motivated by a desire to do good engine programming, avoid ancient APIs like OpenGL, and pursue unusual features like software rendering and ray tracing. The end goal is a complete experience for Arena that runs well on modern PCs.
Last updated Oct 31 2024
- File formats: 95%
- World generation: 100%
- Collision detection: 10%
- Combat: 5%
- Items: 0%
- Spells: 0%
- NPC interaction: 5%
- Quests: 0%
- Cinematics: 5%
- Weather effects: 90%
- Save/load: 0%
Features may come and go from here, or be moved around, depending on how the project is progressing. This list is not exhaustive.
- Attributes, level + experience, stat calculation, weight, stamina, speed, restrictions
- Collision detection (+ climbing, jumping, swimming)
- Entity interaction support (usable containers, placeholder conversation UI)
- Movement sounds (walking, swimming)
- Key locks implementation (pick up key and open associated door)
- Initial inventory implementation (pick up/equip/drop placeholder items, generate placeholder items in loot/corpses, quest items do nothing)
- Initial combat implementation (player health bar from class, enemies run towards player and attack, death animations, sounds)
- NPC conversation support (citizen name, personality, ask directions, placeholder rumors/work)
- NPC name generation
- Automap notes and fog of war
- Character class generation questions
- Initial camping implementation (pass time, heal, no enemy spawning)
- Items generated from original data (no magical effects)
- Enemy loot tables (based on level)
- Ground loot tables
- Loading/saving (+ classic save support)
- NPC merchant item tables (tavern, blacksmith, wizard)
- NPC services (tavern room, temple healing, equipment repair)
- City guards spawn after committing a crime
- Lockpicking (locked containers and buildings)
- Random enemy spawning (based on level)
- Pickpocketing
- Vehicle support (rowboats)
- No wandering NPCs at night
- Character class traits/specials
- Holidays
- Logbook
- Quests
- Spells/enchantments
- Automap zoom-in/out
- AZERTY + QWERTZ keyboard support (see strings in original executable)
- Gamepad support
- Key rebinding
- Launcher application/better means of setting ArenaPaths in options
- Localization
- Save game versioning support
- Screen-space fog shader
- Replace UI panels with more data-driven "UI collections"
- UI scaling
- Support for all of the original game's major data formats
- City generation
- Wild generation
- Main quest dungeons
- Initial citizen spawning and color variation support
- Puddle reflections
- Voiced cinematic support (CD version only)
- Music library system (user-defined MIDI filenames in text file)
- City entrance jingle
- Chunk system to replace fixed-size game world (#181)
- Texture system redesign to decouple SDL2 from texture management and allow future support for other image formats (PNG, etc.) (#192)
- Weather effects (rain, snow, thunderstorms), no screen-space fog
- Input system redesign (input listener registration, input action definitions, easier to add key rebinding later on) (#219)
- UI system redesign (add UI texture handle allocation, UI building blocks like image texture functions, vector space geometry, anchoring, draw calls) (#209, #216, #220)
- Classic 8-bit software renderer with modern enhancements (true 3D, custom scene graph, any screen resolutions, multi-threaded)