An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire

About An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire

An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire (1997) is Bethesda's linear Elder Scrolls spin-off, a first-person dungeon quest through a floating fortress and the planes of Oblivion to stop Mehrunes Dagon, with multiplayer.

An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire in Depth

On the edge of Oblivion floats the Battlespire, and the player must fight through it and the planes of Oblivion to find and defeat the daedric prince Mehrunes Dagon before his armies invade Tamriel. Unlike Daggerfall's open world, it is a linear game of seven dungeon levels completed by defeating enemies, solving puzzles and collecting objects. Players create a character from six races and eighteen classes, or a custom build spending limited points on hit points, skills, attributes, starting spells and equipment, and talk to characters through dialogue trees.

Combat is fought by clicking and dragging the mouse to swing a weapon in one of four directions, with a primary and secondary weapon swapped by a key. Spells come from character creation or scrolls in libraries and can be customised by type, area and range and bound to hotkeys. Skills improve with use, and finishing a level awards experience to raise skills and attributes. It was the first Elder Scrolls game with multiplayer: over a LAN or Mplayer.com, up to eight players can tackle the campaign co-operatively with extra monsters, compete in teams of up to four to finish levels first, or fight in deathmatch, though saving and dialogue are disabled in these modes.

Making An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire

After Daggerfall in 1996, Bethesda prepared several projects to capitalise on its success, turning a planned expansion into spin-offs that would tell more stories in Tamriel and fill the gap while Morrowind was delayed. Intended as simpler, more action-focused games reflecting player feedback, Battlespire was designed with smaller scope and linear levels. Released for MS-DOS in 1997, it received average reviews: Next Generation liked its focus and lack of "aimless wandering", but others missed Daggerfall's depth, found the XnGine graphics dated and criticised its many bugs. It is now seen as an unsuccessful spin-off.