Elona is a roguelike game created by Japanese developer Noa. Its name is short for "Eternal League of Nefia". Noa began developing Elona in 2006, and based it on roguelikes such as Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) and Angband. Noa had previously made two other role-playing games, Shade and Etherwind. A reviewer at Insert Credit praised Elona as "very well-made" and compared its character development system to that of ADOM.

The game is set in a fantasy world called Irva. The player creates a character, with one each of eleven races and ten classes, to battle monsters, practice magic, perform music, or take on various other roles. It is possible to change a value in the configuration and play as special "debug" races, such as a god. The player first takes control of their character, who survives a disaster at sea, in the north of Irva's northwestern continent, Tyris. North Tyris contains many towns and dungeons, with randomly generated elements, that the player can explore as they deal with or avoid creatures, townsfolk, other adventurers, and the corrupting effects of a seasonal phenomenon called Etherwind. The player can take quests and make their character believe in one of several gods to enhance their skills and earn various bonuses.