OpenTESArena

This open-source project aims to be a modern engine re-implementation for the 1994 video game The Elder Scrolls: Arena by Bethesda Softworks. It is written in C++17 and uses SDL2, WildMIDI for music, and OpenAL Soft for sound and mixing. There is support for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Current status

No actual gameplay yet, but all locations and interiors can be accessed for testing. Citizens wander around cities and the wilderness but cannot be interacted with. Fast traveling works and you can go to any city or dungeon on the world map. Collision detection is barebones (just enough for playtesting) and needs work. Character creation works but character questions and player attributes are not implemented. Some of the in-game interface icons work; for example, left clicking the map icon goes to the automap, and right clicking it goes to the world map.

Controls: - WASD - move and turn. Hold LCtrl to strafe. - Esc - pause menu - Tab - character sheet - F - draw/sheathe weapon - G - hold and click voxel to destroy - L - logbook - M - world map - N - automap - V - status - F2 - player position - F4 - debug profiler - PrintScreen - screenshot

Project Details

Inspired by OpenXcom and OpenMW, this started out as a simplistic ray tracing tech demo in early 2016, and is now steadily inching closer to something akin to the original game. I am using a clean-room approach for understanding Arena's algorithms and data structures, the details of which can be found in the wiki. It is a behavioral approximation project, not about matching machine instructions, and quality-of-life changes are made where they make sense.

There are two versions of Arena: the floppy disk version (which Bethesda released for free) and the CD version. The user must acquire their own copy of Arena because OpenTESArena is a standalone engine and does not contain content.

Check out CONTRIBUTING.md for more details on how to assist with development.

Installation

If you would like music played in-game, see Music setup below after installing. The engine uses

ArenaPath

MidiConfig

Windows

1. Get the most recent build from the releases tab.
2. Get the Arena data files from one of:
   1. Download the Full Game from the Bethesda website (floppy disk version)
   2. Bethesda Launcher:

      C:/Program Files (x86)/Bethesda.net Launcher/Games/The Elder Scrolls Arena

      (floppy disk version)
   3. GOG (CD version)
3. Extract Arena106Setup.zip and run Arena106.exe.
4. Pick a destination folder to install into. This can be anywhere on your hard drive or in the OpenTESArena

   data

   folder.
5. Open

   options-default.txt

   in the

   options

   folder and change

   ArenaPath

   to where you put the

   ARENA

   /

   ARENACD

   folder.
6. Run OpenTESArena.exe.

If you see an error about missing MSVCP141.dll or similar, download and run the Visual C++ Redistributable Installer for Windows: - 64-bit (recommended): vcredist.x64.exe - 32-bit: vcredist.x86.exe

If you see a warning about

alcOpenDevice()

macOS

Get the data files for The Elder Scrolls: Arena

1. Download the Full Game from the Bethesda website.
2. Unzip

   Arena106Setup.zip

3. Arena106.exe

   is a self-extracting RAR file. Use a tool such as The Unarchiver to extract it into a folder of data files.

Install OpenTESArena

1. Download the most recent build from the releases tab.
2. Open the

   .dmg

   and copy OpenTESArena to the

   Applications

   folder or another location
3. Right-click on the app and choose "Show Package Contents"
4. Navigate to

   Contents/Resources/data

   and copy in the files for Arena that you extracted earlier
5. Return to the

   Applications

   folder or wherever you have the app installed and open OpenTESArena. If you have Gatekeeper turned on (the default for macOS), you will need to do the following:
   1. Right-click on the app and choose "Open"
   2. In the warning that appears saying that it is from an unidentified developer, choose "Open"
   3. The app will start. In the future, you can just double-click on the app without having to go through these steps.

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Substitute

0.#.0

bash
sudo apt-get install wget unzip rar
wget https://cdnstatic.bethsoft.com/elderscrolls.com/assets/files/tes/extras/Arena106Setup.zip
wget https://github.com/afritz1/OpenTESArena/releases/download/opentesarena-/opentesarena--Linux64.tar.gz
tar xvzf opentesarena--Linux64.tar.gz
cd opentesarena--Linux64/data
unzip ../../Arena106Setup.zip
rar x Arena106.exe
cd ..
./run.sh

Options files

options-default.txt

options-changes.txt

ArenaPath

options-default.txt

/AppData/Roaming/OpenTESArena/options/

~/.config/OpenTESArena/options/

~/Library/Preferences/OpenTESArena/options/

Music setup

Arena uses MIDI files for music, so the user must have MIDI sound patches in order to have music play in-game.

The easiest way is to download one of the eawpats packages (zip, tar.gz) and place the extracted eawpats folder into the OpenTESArena

data

If you would like to use a different sound patches library like OPL3, edit

MidiConfig

.cfg

Building from source

Project dependencies

• CMake
• OpenAL Soft 1.19.1
• SDL 2.0.9
• WildMIDI 0.4.4 (optional; required for music)

Building the executable

• Navigate to the root of the repository
• Use CMake to generate your project file (Visual Studio .sln, Unix Makefile, etc.). In a Unix terminal, the commands might look like:

  bash
  mkdir build
  cd build
  cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=> ..
  make -j8
  

  where

  CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE

  is one of

  Debug

  |

  DebugFast

  |

  ReleaseGeneric

  |

  ReleaseNative

  . For maximum optimizations,

  ReleaseNative

  should be used.
• Other parameters for CMake may be necessary depending on the IDE you are using.

Running the executable

• Verify that the

  data

  and

  options

  folders are in the same folder as the executable. If not, then copy them from the project's root folder (this should be fixed in the future with a post-build command).
• Make sure that

  MidiConfig

  and

  ArenaPath

  in the options file point to valid locations on your computer (i.e.,

  data/eawpats/timidity.cfg

  and

  data/ARENA

  respectively).

If you struggle, here are some more detailed guides: - Building with Visual Studio (Windows)
- Building with MSYS2 (Windows)

If there is a bug or technical problem in the program, check out the issues tab!

Resources

The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages are a great resource for information all about Arena. Various tools like WinArena and BSATool allow for browsing Arena's content, and there is a very detailed manual as well. I also recommend the Lazy Game Review on YouTube for a humorous overview of the game's history and gameplay.