Extraordinary Home Page Among the First to Evolve Into an Untraditional,

ROCKVILLE, Md., Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Bethesda Softworks, producer of award-winning PC games such as "The Elder Scrolls: Arena" and "The Terminator: Rampage," invites weary Internet travelers to visit its new interactive home page on the World Wide Web (http://www.bethsoft.com) and find a gateway to a land of legend and intrigue. New arrivals begin their journey staring into the eyes of a wizard who holds the key to a mystery that must be solved. Visitors can earn credit on the journey and exchange it for discounts on Bethesda products. The adventure is unending by way of regular updates featuring new clues and mysteries.

"Bethesda's home page is as much an environment as a site," said Chris Weaver, president of Bethesda. "This is not just another place where people come to see screen shots of products. You are encouraged to explore. Unlike most home pages, we put fun into ours by creating an interactive adventure that actually responds to the user."

The adventure starts outside a barren medieval city where visitors must solve riddles and acquire objects in order to discover the mystery of the town's missing population. A brief registration process allows the user to create a screen alias and password that records their progress, allowing them to leave the site and return at a later time where they left off.

Bethesda's "Emporium" mixes the real with the fantastic, as visitors to the site accrue credits by completing various tasks during their trek through the virtual countryside. These credits can then be used in the Emporium for discounts on Bethesda merchandise.

Visitors can also look up information about Bethesda, access information and download demos of upcoming products, ask technical support questions and provide feedback on the site. The local tavern even has a billboard where the Internet user can learn about employment opportunities at Bethesda. Acknowledging varying hardware capabilities, Bethesda has three different site modes: text only, light graphics and heavy graphics.

"What makes this site most exciting is the fact that we are doing things that have never been done before," said Moshe Teitelbaum, Bethesda's Webmaster. "People will be able to visit our site over and over again because they will have a new experience each time."

Headquartered in Rockville, Md., Bethesda is the fourth-largest privately held publisher of PC entertainment software. Bethesda's success and long-standing technical expertise have attracted world-class programmers as well as veterans of the largest Hollywood animation studios. The company is the entertainment software division of Media Technology Limited, an engineering research and development firm originally founded by members of the Architecture Machine Group from MIT. Bethesda can be reached at 1370 Piccard Drive, Rockville, Md., 20850; 301/963-2000 (voice) or 301/926-8010 (fax).

/CONTACT: Pam Miller, Tamese Robinson or Chris Albrecht, all of Kaufer Miller Communications for Bethesda Softworks, 206-450-9965 (voice), or 206-450-9963 (fax), or TgRobinson@aol.com /

CO: Bethesda Softworks ST: Maryland IN: CPR SU:

JL -- SE003 -- 5378 08/18/95 15:25 EDT