Daggerfall has been Remastered- and is Available now for Free
What many refer to as Bethesda’s first breakout hit, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, has been remastered and is now fully playable- for free! The second game in the titan series is still a far cry from the hand crafted locations we see in the more modern iterations like Oblivion and Skyrim. This is because it relied heavily on an auto-generated world space (sounds familiar eh?) that meant it was over 200,000 square kilometers and would take over 50 real world hours to cross. That’s pretty impressive for today’s standards- let alone back in 1996.
Image by Daggerfall Unity team
If you wanted to delve back into this classic, or want to experience the roots of the Elder Scrolls series without the muddy textures and outdated graphics, you finally can- but there’s a slight catch. This isn’t an official Bethesda created remaster as it was instead made solely by fans (which explains why its free). The project has been in development for over ten years and was finally finished on the last day of 2023- where it was put out in version 1.0 for everyone to enjoy. You can download it yourself right here: https://www.dfworkshop.net/daggerfall-unity-1-0-release/
Image by Daggerfall Unity team
In order to actually play the Unity version of Daggerfall, you do need to have a copy of the original DOS version of the game as this is what provides the textures and assets that allow the game to run. Fret not, however, as you can download this for exactly nothing (keeping the trend going) from multiple places- including from Bethesda’s website, GOG and Steam. This ensures that there’s no excuse not to download this passion project and give it a try.
Image by Daggerfall Unity team
On top of this, the 1.0 version of Daggerfall Unity provides beautiful new graphics, full modern mod support and even render distance improvements to make the game look the best it ever has. The fans behind the project also confirmed that they will continue working on the game during the post-release period to ensure stability and community support. Considering that they’re all doing this for completely free, that’s praise-worthy indeed, and gives you no excuse to not check out this classic game reimagined. Let’s hope this inspires Bethesda to offer some more personal care to some of their older games such as Morrowind and Oblivion in the form of remakes or remasters- although that’s not looking very likely unfortunately.
