Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (PC, 1996)

A Bethesda classic that may just be a bit too old for some gamers.

Nostalgia Factor: Low.
Difficulty: Very hard. The RNG can be very punishing.

Oblivion had a massive impact on me. It caused me to go back and give Morrowind a proper shot. With loads of mods, Morrowind can still be a great experience for some, though an early 3D game from 2002 certainly has its frustrating quirks. Feeling quite brave after revisiting Morrowind, I decided to go back even further to 1996. I saw that Daggerfall Unity had made this old classic much more playable on modern systems.

There were many features about Daggerfall that piqued my interest. I’d heard over and over again that Daggerfall remained the largest open world RPG every made.

Morrowind 10 sq mi, Obvliion and Skyrim, each ~15 sq mi, Witcher 3 20sq mi, World of Warcraft 80 sq mi, FF15 700 sq mi, LOTR Online was a whopping 30,000 sq mi, and Elder Scrolls II Daggerfall still takes the cake with world map that is 62,000 sq mi. It’s absurd. It’s hard to fathom. Daggerfall boasts 15,000 cities, towns, villages, and dungeons. Here’s another way to think about it. It takes about 2 hours to walk across the entire Skyrim world map, and it takes almost 70 hours to walk across the Daggerfall world map.

Of course, when you learn that nearly the entire game world within Daggerfall is procedurally generated, it’s easier to accept the size of the game. And, unfortunately, the procedurally generated content of the game is a double edged sword. It’s both the most fascinating aspect of the game, and also the most miserable aspect of the game.

I played the Alpha release (0.10.4) of Daggerfall Unity, which was very smooth and stable. They’re on version 1.0 now, so they must’ve smoothed out pretty much any conceivable bug at this point. I don't remember experiencing any notable bugs in my playthrough, other than just one minor glitch that occurred when I died from sickness during travel. For some reason, the death cinematic played four times in a row. I must've reeeally died.

Anyway, within my first hour of gameplay, Daggerfall taught me some brutal lessons. This game is hard. I am not a hardcore gamer by any stretch, but I do usually avoid cheats whenever possible. I lasted until I encountered my first Lich in Direnni Tower at only level 7. I then quickly took advantage of the console commands to get past the lich. Sorry friends. I am way too lazy to grind levels in an RNG dominated game like Daggerfall. I used the set_walkspeed and set_runspeed commands liberally so my character would move much faster through this massive world. Also, the reveal buildings command came in handy too. I have to give props to the few and the proud that grind through to the end of this game without cheats. That would be quite a feat.

I found myself just beat into the ground by the game’s brutal RNG. The random dungeons are so long and can be very difficult. For the Werebeast quest, I spent HOURS wandering the random assigned dungeon looking for the quest objective to no avail. I eventually gave in and used the tele2qspawn command to take me directly to the quest objective I needed.

If you like having seemingly endless content, Daggerfall may be for you. It seems virtually impossible to run out of things to do in this game. So many NPCs offer some kind of quest. Every city is huge, and even the smaller towns all over the world map are still quite large compared to some of the coastal towns in Morrowind.

I do need to give credit where credit is due though. Daggerfall has moods and vibes for days. Dungeon crawling is very spooky and tense. That’s an area where the RNG strengthens the experience. I never knew what to expect. The soundtrack is plenty effective as well. The ambient sound effects (all the roars and howls and groans) really keep you on edge. I’ll never forget the first time I traveled to Daggerfall. I approached the city at night to find the gates closed, and then nearly jumped out of my seat when I heard "VENGEANCE" blasting through my computer speakers.

I wasn't sure how much lore to expect in Daggerfall, but I did enjoy the story. Morrowind really stepped up the lore game for sure, but Daggerfall builds a strong foundation. The lore is the biggest reason I wanted to give Daggerfall a shot anyway, and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed hearing names and items mentioned in Daggerfall that have been sustained in the lore through all of the Elder Scrolls games.

Daggerfall has some strengths for sure, but this game has just grown so long in the tooth, it will be very difficult for most gamers to engage without a hefty dose of nostalgia. 1996 was a long time ago. As a 90s kid, I try my best to be an advocate for older games, but Daggerfall is just so far removed from Skyrim, I find it hard to encourage younger gamers to give it a shot. Unless you’re a die hard fan of the Elder Scrolls series and you need to check this one off your list, I’d pass on Daggerfall and just settle for watching entertaining YouTube playthroughs.