It’s easy to forget now, but the first Elder Scrolls game had a rough launch back in the day: ‘It was a disaster in a lot of ways and somehow built a billion-dollar franchise’
The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the first game in what would become Bethesda’s billion-dollar franchise, had a notably rocky commercial launch in 1994 despite critical recognition. While the game received respectable reviews—including an 87/100 score—it struggled significantly to move copies when it first hit shelves, according to Ted Peterson, designer on the first two Elder Scrolls games.
In a retrospective on the making of Daggerfall, Peterson recalled the commercial challenges the original game faced, with game stores having difficulty shifting inventory. This initial struggle stands in sharp contrast to the legacy the series would eventually establish, transforming Bethesda into a powerhouse in the open-world RPG space.
The contrast between Arena’s difficult launch and the franchise’s eventual success represents a notable example of how a game’s initial performance doesn’t necessarily predict its long-term impact. What began as a commercial underperformer in 1994 would go on to build a franchise now valued at over one billion dollars, fundamentally reshaping both Bethesda’s identity and the open-world RPG genre itself.