Books: Russian published “Skyrim. The history of the creation of the great game”

1.1. THE BIRTH OF BETHESDA SOFTWORKS

Before becoming one of the most prominent developers and publishers in the gaming industry, Bethesda Softworks was just a small company of engineers and programmers. In the early eighties, the development of computing technology went by leaps and bounds, the computer market grew exponentially, and the lively interest of many people in new interactive media led to the birth of the studio. At this time, Christopher Weaver, an employee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was working on new communication tools and their physical and conceptual models. In addition to these studies, he worked on numerous third-party technical projects such as data and image transmission, the development of new cameras for shooting interactive movies or data processing to facilitate editing and framing. Weaver was right at the forefront of this rapid technological evolution. He also ran a company founded with several colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She specialized in engineering research and development.

Media Technology projects were developed on the basis of a variety of employee research. Freedom in research was not limited by anything, so some took up video games. In 1986, one of the company’s employees, Edward J. Fletcher, asked his colleague Christopher Weaver to look at one of his developments — the simplest simulator of American football. The game was a field of pixels with a view from above, on which colored dots fought. But the purpose of the program was not entertainment, but a technological understanding of the real game of American football. Although the first attempts did not impress Weaver, and the game was not as fun as he would have liked, he became interested in the concept. He started working on a physics engine that allowed better application of sports rules to software. After several months of work, Fletcher and Weaver decided to release a game called Gridiron! — this is another name for American football — under the label of a new company, a division of Media Technology Ltd. The purpose of this company was, first of all, testing the PC games market and, in fact, experiments in the development of various games. Gridiron! it was just a great starting opportunity for this adventure. The name for the game was already ready, and for the new studio it had yet to be invented. The only thing that came to Weaver’s mind was the name Softworks—unfortunately, already occupied by another company. And then his choice fell on the name of his hometown, Bethesda, to which he had already boldly added the original Softworks. In the same 1986 Gridiron! released on Amiga and Atari ST computers. The first game published under the banner of Bethesda Softworks was the beginning of a successful path.

Studio Debuts

Shortly after the release of Gridiron! Electronic Arts contacted the young company and offered to develop a new American football game for it, the first in the John Madden Football franchise. After several business meetings and presentations, the studio was hired and the team got to work. Pretty soon, Chris Weaver and his colleagues suspected something was wrong, and when the game appeared on store shelves in 1988, the following turned out: not only did it only resemble the product they created, it was also allegedly developed and published by Electronic Arts, without any mention of Bethesda Softworks. This John Madden Football largely used the physics engine and other developments of Bethesda. The studio sued: it was claimed that copyright was violated, and Electronic Arts hired a team to steal the code. Bethesda claimed damages in the amount of $ 7.3 million, which today is approximately $ 15 million. The protocol and details of the trial have not yet been made public, but Bethesda Softworks won the court, proved the authorship of the development, defended its rights and achieved recognition as the author of the game. Relations with the future giant EA have been strained since then, but the studio has not become impoverished at all — and has taken up new projects, also in the field of sports, and also in cinema. The company had potential: they were able to create physics engines and high-quality sports simulations. Bethesda’s business went uphill with hockey player Wayne Gretzky. All in the same 1988 Wayne Gretzky Hockey will be released on personal computers and will surprise fans of the genre. Released simultaneously on the largest platforms of its time: Mac OS, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga and DOS — an operating system that covered a wide range of computers — the project received good reviews from critics and allowed the team to found its first series of games. In addition, her brainchild first appeared on consoles in the NES version, which was published by THQ. Pretty soon, the team received a new contract to create the first game based on the 1984 revelation film, Terminator, for the DOS operating system. These successes will also change the hierarchy in the company, until then managed collectively. From now on, Honored Master Chris Weaver will take the reins. Two years after the Electronic Arts mess, Wayne Gretzky Hockey II and Terminator came out for personal computers. They raised the credibility of developers in the industry and opened up new publishing opportunities for the studio: the Terminator license agreement allowed delegating development for consoles to third parties. In this spirit, the company’s business will continue until 1992 and the launch of a new project, a game about gladiators, which will open the way to a completely new series, which turned into The Elder Scrolls: Arena a few years later.

1.2. THE BEGINNING OF THE SAGA

A project called Arena has been maturing in the minds of the development team for a long time. They wanted to create something in a medieval fantasy setting, but the global goal was a game about gladiators fighting for honor and glory. The Tamriel universe already existed in the head of Julian Lefay and several other members of the team, Dungeons & Dragons fans. The basics of geography, country names and numerous details shaped the world for their role-playing sessions. As a result, it turned out to be a strong base for a simple ENT that does not require any additional research and its various aspects. The development of the game started under the leadership of Chris Weaver, who, as the leader of the studio, approved and reinterpreted the ideas of the team according to his idea of the future game. The original concept will change little by little, as different parts of the team influenced the world of the game in different ways. From the idea of gladiator squads fighting among themselves, Lefay and his colleagues made a hybrid of first-person battles, inventory management and RPG characteristics, laying the foundations of the series. Distributors knew that a certain gladiator game was being prepared for release, and the closer the end of the project was, the more worried Weaver became. By that time, the project had already moved away from the original vision, and the marketing campaign no longer reflected the essence of the product. The reception promised to be unfriendly. To dispel the disturbing omens a little, the team decided to add the prefix The Elder Scrolls to the Arena, emphasizing that such a name would denote a series of games of some universe. And if you’re lucky, the team will have an escape route in the form of competition with Ultima, part of which Underworld was released in 1992.

The Arena release in March 1994 cannot be called a success — Weaver’s fears were confirmed. Distributors did not understand why a fighting game called Arena turned into an RPG, and the product’s artwork raised questions — sales failed. Criticism also did not particularly flatter the novelty, many complained about the high entry threshold for beginners, but stressed that the game has an interesting setting and universe, a thoughtful engine and nice graphics. Unfortunately, the game was constantly compared to Ultima Underworld, which, from the point of view of the players, was the standard CRPG. In the first year after the release of Arena, the atmosphere of the small studio was greatly shaken. Chris Weaver saw only a failure that tarnished the company’s reputation, and huge holes in the budget. At that time, no one thought to return to such adventures anymore, and the studio began developing more mundane projects, swallowing this bitter pill. But a year later, the team was surprised: Arena sales soared without any clear prerequisites for that. The enthusiastic reviews of the players who discovered the Tamriel universe turned into word of mouth and created a snowball effect. Bethesda did not just beat off the development costs — the game began to make a profit, as well as gain national fame. However, despite this, Weaver harbored a grudge against the team of Julian Lefay. After a while, he will take revenge for disobedience and the risks taken

The Thorny Path of Daggerfall

Despite a flurry of letters from fans demanding a sequel, burned on the development of Arena, Chris Weaver was not going to follow their lead. For him, this game remained a failure: it required too much involvement of the teams, distracted from the main strategy of the studio, and most importantly, in his opinion, was not financially viable in the long term. But after incessant requests from Julian Lefay and intensive negotiations, he still gave in and allowed the developers to continue working on the Arena sequel, which had already begun in the process of creating the first part. The only condition was that the team assigned to the project would be as limited as possible, and she would have to work with what was given. In such circumstances, Lefay and his people began developing The Elder Scrolls II: Mournhold, the plot of which unfolds in Morrowind and its capital Mournhold, known in French as Longsanglot. Problems soon began: the shortage of personnel made itself felt and slowed down the workflow. Then it was decided to move the scene to a less extensive region, the Iliac Bay, which will allow both to vary the environment and to facilitate the course of the game. Another problem was that Lefay was both the project manager and the sole programmer. Yes, he was assisted by one permanent assistant and several colleagues, but the rest of the team consisted mainly of artists and designers. They created a universe whose image moved further and further away from the Arena, which was considered too similar to the world of Ultima Underworld. The development turned into a real chaos when Chris Weaver — who was already pressing Lefay with requests to release the project as soon as possible — demanded that the game be transferred to the first 3D engine from Media Technology, the parent office of Bethesda Softworks. But there was also good news: Lefay’s colleague and friend Ted Peterson finished working with the game’s universe — the script, the environment and even the visual style were ready. It turned out to be an absolutely unique world that laid the foundation for a real franchise. Alas, Peterson was forced to leave the project and take up other tasks: in “moving” to the XnGine engine and writing the entire game code, Lefay could only count on himself. Lefay was finishing the development of Daggerfall in a hurry and could rely on only a few employees who could help him. Chris Weaver continued to put pressure on the small team, so she had to cut out the features and content to the maximum, while at the same time catching graphic bugs. On August 31, 1996, after this frantic and exhausting race, Julian Lefay and his team released the game in the USA on PC MS-DOS.

The reaction of the American press was again ambiguous — and in the first weeks of the game’s release, the very existence of the franchise was jeopardized. American critics noted the hasty development and the obvious need for polishing, did not approve of the choice of the XnGine engine, which is already outdated against the background of other 3D games like Quake from id Software studio, which, ironically, Bethesda will buy years later. And they were also criticized for the fact that many of the features announced before the release did not appear in the game, but bugs were present in a huge number. All this, of course, betrayed hasty development and carelessness during the final grinding. On the other hand, the critics liked the high—quality plot and the elaborated universe – it was so original and rich, which allowed them to close their eyes to other disadvantages in some way. Most players, in turn, still considered the product not playable, too massive and visually boring. It is worth noting once again the following fact: Julian Lefay and his unit got into such a turn because of the authoritarian and insensitive to the needs of the game Chris Weaver, who also insisted on changing the engine right in the midst of work. In the fall of 1996, the small team was barely making ends meet. Nevertheless, Lefay did not give up and rolled up his sleeves again, intending to fix bugs and release patches for the American public, and at the same time prepare for the European release scheduled for November 1 of the same year.

The launch of Daggerfall in the Old World was much more successful than overseas. The players received a product already freed from critical bugs with huge adjustments made in the three months between the two releases. Unexpectedly, Europe welcomed the game cordially, although the press still drew attention to the outdated graphics of average quality and the complexity of the gameplay. And if the American criticism was rather harsh, the European one was ultimately even flirtatious. Didier Latil finished his review in the magazine Génération 4 with these words: “Daggerfall belongs to those rare works that deserve the proud title of a Role-playing Game!” American players, returning to Daggerfall after patches, revised their attitude to it and finally noted the advantages. Despite the outdated engine, delivery delays and still present bugs, the game deserved high praise. Magazines and websites GameRevolution, Computer Games Strategy Plus and Gamespot will award it the title of game of the year, praising the narrative component and incredible old—school sensations – almost like from a tabletop role-playing game. Daggerfall was finally saved, and The Elder Scrolls was appreciated, but the work did not end there. Many employees left the company, and Julian Lefay knew that it was technically impossible to start developing the third part yet. For a worthy return to the world of Tamriel, advanced technologies were needed, 3D engines had to undergo evolution, which means it was not worth starting a long development with an unknown ending. Exhausted by the titanic work on Daggerfall, Lefay and the surviving team members will rest a little and start working on two additions, which will then turn into independent games — An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire and The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard.