The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

If you’re playing the Elder Scrolls games backwards from Skyrim, this game will probably disappoint you. So you really have to look at it through the eyes of when it was new. First of all, this game could have easily been called “The Elder Scrolls: Texas,” because everything about the game is BIG! The map is almost the size of Great Britain, the cities and towns are huge, and you can even get lost inside some buildings. And don’t get me started on the size of the dungeons. But that’s also part of the problem with Daggerfall. See, a lot of quests are timed, in that they have to be completed within a certain number of in-game days. And there is no “fast” travel option - you have to look up your destination on the map and choose how to get there. For example, traveling from one end of the map to the other takes something like 10 in-game days. Because of this, you don’t usually have time to randomly explore the map. On the other hand, a lot of locations look the same. But this is how you fit a game world of this size on a PC with specs that make a Raspberry Pi seem powerful. Overall, this isn’t a bad game at all. It just hasn’t aged well. If you want to give it a try today, I’d suggest running the Unity version.

Listen... the graphics are a 2 of 10. Everything else is a 10 of 10. If you love the elder scrolls and want to travel back in time... play this game! You will arrive at a more simplistic and on the other hand excrutiatingly painful game that hopefully expands your gaming horizons.

its a great game if you put in the time to learn it

Its great that GOG has this game and its free, it worked perfectly without any crashes or issues. The graphics look dated even for the mid nineties, but then again it was one of the first 3D games like doom or wolfenstein 3D. The controls feel pretty bad and the starter dungeon is too difficult. Like others I found Daggerfall Unity elsewhere and it vastly improves the graphics and controls. However, the general gameplay is still kind of boring, there are endless tasks of picking up and dropping off things in samey-dungeons and towns. I'm glad to have tried this game out, moving on to Morrowind now.

After playing all modern entries in The Elder Scrolls series, I decided to go back and see where it all began. What I found was a game that clearly laid the foundation for the series identity, with mechanics and ideas that are still present today. There's plenty to do here. The quests themselves are basic and often templated to simple fetch quests but it's understandable within the context of the limitations of its engine. Dungeons are another beast entirely. They are fully 3D and often feel like sprawling labyrinths. There's a sense of scale and confusion that's hard to replicate today. But the best part of the game is immersion. You're not the center of the universe here. You're just one person in a huge, living world, and it behaves more like a simulation than a typical RPG. The main quest isn't urgent. In fact, it often pauses for ingame weeks until the next letter arrives. In the meantime, you're free to do whatever you like. Buy a house or a ship. Travel the wilds, worship Daedra and earn rare gear. Or break into someone's home, get arrested, go to court and spend a whole ingame year in prison because you can. It's all part of the world, and it never pressures you to follow a specific path. Of course, it's still an old game. Accessibility is a hurdle for modern players. Thankfully, there's a version running on the Unity engine. This brings quality of life improvements plus full mod support. Imagine how important this game is to fans, carefully porting it into another engine and preserving the experience. And with mods you can also have your waifu experiences in Daggerfall. Great isn't it? It is glitchy and janky but still worth trying. With the Unity engine and because you can play it for free today, there is no excuse not to give it a try if you're curious about the roots of the series.