The elder scrolls

Work on the series began in 1992 when employees of Bethesda Softworks , a company that previously specialized mainly in sports games, decided to change the genre of their future Arena , making it a role-playing game instead of fighting game . Influenced by the games Ultima Underworld and Dungeons & Dragons, the company developed a large-scale, open, but ultimately secondary role-playing game with a first-person view of The Elder Scrolls: Arena , which was released in 1994 for DOS . Thus began the history of the series, which was based on the principle of “Be what you want and do what you want” ^[1] .

The next game in the Elder Scrolls series - The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall - was released in 1996. Amid Arena , which was a very moderate success, Daggerfall was a more ambitious project. At Daggerfall , an attempt was made to create a living three-dimensional world the size of two UK and build a role system based on the development of skills, rather than the accumulation of experience points. However, Daggerfall’s ambitiousness served him poorly: the game, hastily released, was filled with errors (“ bugs ”) and had excessively high system requirements at the time than the unofficial name “Buggerfall” earned from the words bug and fall . According to one of the commentators, despite the fact that Daggerfall was a great commercial success, “the game is still based on bad code” ^[2] .

After the release of Daggerfall Bethesda until 1998, was not developing a sequel, instead releasing the games The Elder Scrolls Legends: Battlespire in 1997 and The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard in 1998. Both games had an incomparably smaller scale: Battlespire was a journey through the dungeons, and Redguard was a game in the genre of action-adventure with a third-person view and a linear plot. Games sold poorly, and Bethesda was on the verge of bankruptcy. Thanks to the investment that followed ZeniMax Media 's takeover of the studio in 1999, Bethesda came back to life.

To work on The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Bethesda tripled the number of employees and again relied on high system requirements. Morrowind returned to the traditional non-linear and vast gaming world and included hand-crafted landscapes and artifacts, while the game world was still smaller than in its predecessor games. Morrowind was released for the Xbox and Windows in 2002 and was a success with both critics and the gaming public: by mid- 2005, 4 million copies of the game had been sold. Soon, in late 2002 - mid-2003, two add-ons were released: The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal and The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon .

Immediately after the release of Morrowind , in the same 2002, work began on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion . The game runs on the GameBryo engine, which is an improved version of NetImmerse used in the previous game in the series. Oblivion's strengths were to be a tightly twisted plot, improved artificial intelligence based on Bethesda's own development - Radiant AI , improved physics based on the Havok engine , and impressive graphics . The game was released for Windows and Xbox 360 in early 2006 , for the PlayStation 3 - in early 2007 . In late 2006 and early 2007, Bethesda released two add-ons for Oblivion : The Elder Scrolls IV: Knights of the Nine and The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles .

On April 27, 2009, Bethesda Softworks announced the release of two novels in the The Elder Scrolls universe by Greg Keyes . The first novel, The Infernal City: An Elder Scrolls Novel ( Russian Hell City ), was released on November 24, 2009 ^[3] .

The next game in the series, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , was announced on December 11, 2010 at the Spike TV Video Games Awards event, where the first teaser trailer was shown ^[4] . A few months earlier, in August 2010, game development manager Todd Howard said that Bethesda began work on the next part of the Elder Scrolls series immediately after the release of Oblivion , and that the company moved from the planning stage and developing the concept to the active development of Skyrim after the release Fallout 3 (2008) ^[5] . The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released on November 11, 2011 (11.11.11) for Microsoft Windows , PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 . She received a number of awards as the "Best Game of 2011" from ^[6] , Spike Awards ^[7] and other publications and organizations. Skyrim used the new Creation Engine game engine developed internally by Bethesda ^{[8] [9]} . Skyrim takes place two hundred years after the events of Oblivion , in the northern province of Skyrim, amid a civil war; the protagonist of the game, Dragonborn, is trying to protect Skyrim from the dragon Alduin. In 2012, three downloadable add-ons were released: Dawnguard , Hearthfire, and Dragonborn . On October 28, 2016, the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition for Windows and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ^[10] game consoles was re-released, which received improved graphics and the ability to install modifications on the console.

On June 10, 2018 at E3 2018 , the official announcement of the games The Elder Scrolls VI ^[11] and The Elder Scrolls: Blades ^{[12] took place} .

The Elder Scrolls universe is divided into several planes of being. The action of the games of the Elder Scrolls series takes place in one of them - the planet Nirn , as well as in a parallel plan - Oblivion ( English Oblivion ), divided into several areas, each of which is governed by the Prince of Daedra . Nirn is a planet on which several continents are located. The events of almost all the games in the TES series take place on the mainland of Tamriel .

Bestiary

The bestiary of the fictional TES universe began in the first game of the series, Arena . A small bestiary of this game was described in a separate chapter of its manual ^[13] . The bestiary of Daggerfall is several times more extensive than that in Arena . Such creatures appear that later became the Morrowind bestiary, such as Dreugs, Atronachs, Spriggans, etc. The creatures of the first chapter of the series are also present in Daggerfall ^[14] . Some monsters first appeared in games outside the main line of games: in Redguard (Dwemer mechanisms) ^[15] and Battlespire (daedra) ^[16] .

The Morrowind bestiary has many original creations that have no analogues both in the real fauna and in bestiaries of other fantasy worlds, and not present in other games of the series. In the “Interview of a Skeleton Man with Tamriel Residents,” a game-style text from developers, the originality of Morrowind's fauna is explained, due to the geographic isolation of the province from most of the mainland and volcanic activity ^[17] . The originality of gaming fauna Morrowind noted the magazine " Gambling " ^[18] . Another memorable feature of the TES world, which first appeared in Redguard and was elaborated in detail in Morrowind , is the Dwemer mechanisms, aggressive mechanical creatures preserved from the extinct Dwemer race ^[19] . Several new monsters were added in the first Morrowind add-on - Tribunal , which takes place in the city of Mornhold on the mainland of Morrowind. The action of the second addon Bloodmoon takes place on the snow-covered island of Solstheim, with a fauna that differs sharply from that in the original game (and closer to the fauna of the real world). The addon adds a large number of new monsters, and high-level ones, as noted by the magazine “ Game World Navigator ” ^[20] .

The bestiary of the next game in the series, Oblivion , is based in part on all the previous games in the series, including Morrowind (for example, the Daedra hierarchy is mostly the same in the third and fourth chapters of The Old Scrolls) ^[21] .

Daedra

Daedra or Daedra ^[22] ( born Daedra ) - entities like demons that live in Oblivion ^[23] . In the magazine “ Best Computer Games ”, TES demonology was called the most developed among computer games, and the daedron was compared with Jewish demons - “usually malicious, but sometimes beneficial” ^[24] . Daedra as a separate group of game monsters appeared in Daggerfall ^[25] . The appearance of such an original group of monsters was called by the correspondent of the Igromania magazine “an extra facet in the world of wonders Elder Scrolls ” ^[26] . They also appeared in Redguard ^[27] and made up most of the Battlespire bestiary ^[16] . The fourth game of the series also has a large list of these monsters ^[21] .

In addition to the many NPCs of daedra monsters, the older Daedra or Daedric Princes , powerful supernatural immortal creatures that are usually ranked as gods or demiurges , are important in a series of games . ^[28] The eldest daedra are usually sixteen, sometimes seventeen. For the first time, the Princes of the Daedra, like the Daedra in general, appeared in the second game of the series ( Daggerfall ). Since then, sixteen Princes have their own day in the calendar, in which they can be called up (in Daggerfall it is implemented), their sphere of influence, and one or more powerful artifacts are associated with each ^[29] .

Confronting the prince of destruction Merunes Dagon ( Eng. Mehrunes Dagon ) is the basis of the plot of two games: Battlespire and Oblivion . In both games, this Prince appears in the form of a four-armed giant with red skin, dressed only in a loincloth. Merunes Dagon from the fourth game of the series is mentioned as a contender for the title of “Villain of the Year” -2006 according to the magazine “ Fantasy World ”. ^[30] . In the “Top 10 Gods of The Elder Scrolls ”, published on the IGN portal, Merunes Dagon is in tenth place. It is noted that he is the most "successful" antagonist of the series. ^[31]

Around the god of madness, Sheogorath, the events of the addon The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles unfold, where the main character falls into the realm of the mad god, of the same name with the name of the game. After passing a fair amount of tests, the player himself will be offered the opportunity to become the Lord of madness.

In games not related to the main series, the Princes also played an important role. In the game Redguard, the main character encounters Clavicus Vile ^[27] ( English Clavicus Vile ) - the lord of meanness and deception. Clavicus Vile offers Cyrus a deal, making fun of him in every way, and he, having solved the riddle of Vile, frees the soul of his sister. ^{[27] [32]} In The Elder Scrolls ' Top 10 Gods, published on IGN , Clavicus Vile is in seventh place (the highest of the three Princes on the list). His role as a trickster is noted, and his influence on the Cyrodiil clan of vampires ^[31] . In Battlespire, the whole plot is built on the fight against Merunes Dagon ^[33] .

Werewolves and Vampires

Werewolves as game monsters, as well as the ability to turn into a werewolf to a player infected with lycanthropy , appeared in Daggerfall ^[34] . In Morrowind, the developers refused to introduce werewolves into the game, as they did not correspond to the plot and atmosphere of the game, which caused discontent among the players ^[35] . However, werewolves and the opportunity to become them adds the addon Bloodmoon . T. Khorev notes that becoming a werewolf in Bloodmoon is not profitable for a player ^[36] . There are no werewolves in Oblivion , nor the opportunity to become them. In Skyrim, you can become a werewolf during quests for Companions.

Vampires as one of the three strongest game monsters appeared in the first game of the series ^[37] . In the second game of the series, an opportunity was introduced for the player to become a vampire himself ^[38] . This feature is also in Morrowind , where vampirism is implemented differently. The player can become a vampire in the fourth chapter of TES , where the implementation of vampirism was again changed. The Dawnguard expansion pack for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is dedicated to vampires and vampirism.

In Russia, games officially began to be released starting from the third part of the series, the publisher is 1C . For the first and second there are fan translations ^[39] . There are pirated translations of Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire and Redguard.

For The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind , Oblivion and Skyrim , code-rendering editors for the plugins The Elder Scrolls Construction Set and The Elder Scrolls V Creation Kit were developed.

The games in the series received positive reviews from reviewers and gaming sites. Many games have received widespread recognition, some - the status of cult games ^{[89] [90] [91]} .

Крупнейшие неофициальные сайты

• Tes.ag.ru — Летописи Тамриэля на базе Absolute Games (рус.) .
• Fullrest.ru (рус.) .
• Tesall.ru (рус.) .
• ElderScrolls.Net (рус.) .
• The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages — wiki-энциклопедия с информацией по вселенной TES (англ.) .
• The Imperial Library — один из крупнейших сайтов с информацией по вселенной TES (англ.) .
• Nexus Mods — одна из крупнейших баз плагинов к играм серии TES (англ.) .
• Planet Elder Scrolls — одна из крупнейших баз плагинов к играм серии TES (англ.) .

Other

• Elder Scrolls Lore FAQ (англ.) .
• Elder Scrolls Lore FAQ — дополненный перевод на русский язык (рус.) .
• IGN: Top 25 PC Games of All Time ( страница 2 и 3 ) (англ.)
• Все игры серии The Elder Scrolls на сайте «Игромания» (рус.) .
• Barton, Matt The Dawn of the Platinum Age; Bethesda and The Elder Scrolls (неопр.) . The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part III: The Platinum and Modern Ages (1994-2004), page 5 . Gamasutra (11 апреля 2007). Дата обращения 13 мая 2007. Архивировано 26 августа 2011 года. (eng.)