The biggest Elder Scrolls to date, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, has now been completely remade in Unity thanks to a group of dedicated fans. It features a number of quality-of-life improvements and graphical updates to the classic 1996 RPG that make it well worth diving into for Bethesda RPG fans, as well as extensive mod support.
A group of fans known as the Daggerfall Workshop began development on Daggerfall Unity over a decade ago, with the goal being to provide an open-source recreation of the game in a more modern engine. That goal has now become a reality with Daggerfall Unity’s 1.0 release. All of Daggerfall is included, but with new bells and whistles to make the game more accessible for modern audiences, including revamped first-person controls, support for high resolution monitors, more translation options, enhanced draw distances, and modern lighting that makes the game’s retro visuals feel new.
No Bethesda RPG would be complete without mods, of course, and Daggerfall Unity supports those, too. Optional mods like D.R.E.A.M. (the Daggerfall Remaster Enchanted Art Mod) upgrade the game’s visuals, and according to the Daggerfall Unity site, “goes beyond a restoration and fixes the old quirks, bugs, and increases variety/fidelity everywhere possible.” Fans have made new quests for players to discover, and brand-new guilds to join, such as the Archaeologist guild. There are even mods like the Physical Combat and Armor Overhaul mod that revamp how Daggerfall’s combat works, replacing the original game’s system of armor increasing the chance for a player to be missed by attacks to instead reducing the amount of damage a player takes.
The remaster is completely free and simply requires players to claim a free copy of DOS version of Daggerfall from somewhere like Steam, download and unzip the latest version of Daggerfall Unity, and point it at the file location for the DOS version of the game. The remaster then “will take care of everything else,” according to Daggerfall Workshop. You can learn more about the project, and download it, via the Daggerfall Workshop website. An earlier version of the remaster prior to its 1.0 release, with three dozen mods pre-installed, was released on GOG in 2022 and is still available to download.
For those who haven’t checked out one of Bethesda’s earliest games, Daggerfall Unity provides a great excuse to do so. The game is massive, with a game world the size of the United Kingdom and over 15,000 towns. If you’re wondering how Daggerfall’s game world compares to that of later Elder Scrolls games like Skyrim, one fan over on Reddit has you covered.
As for when the next proper entry in The Elder Scrolls franchise will arrive, the good news is The Elder Scrolls VI is officially in early development. However, former Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines said last year that more information about the anticipated RPG won’t come for another “few years.” The Elder Scrolls VI will reportedly not launch on PlayStation consoles, although with the game still years away, plans could possibly change.