A lot of times, the titles that went for this on some level seemed more like simulations than games or stories. They were less consistently fun than other games, but they were often profoundly ambitious.
Since they were all about helping a player live out something in their imaginations, they were also prone to viscerally negative reactions at launch from people who had personal expectations that didn’t map to the reality of what a game can actually do. (This continues today; look at the reactions to No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, and yes, Starfield.)
Daggerfall is one of those games. It is not for everybody. But for that niche group of players who are up for something jazzy and simulation-y that takes risks to let them live an alternate fantasy life that’s as much in their head canon as on the screen, it’s one of the best games of all time.
I strongly believe it’s important to judge a game (or any other art or media) more on whether it achieves what it’s going for than whether it meets whatever external expectations you might bring to it. If you agree, then that puts Daggerfall in a better position than if you have a more prescriptive attitude about game design.
The fidelity expectations of modern AAA titles and accompanying scope and cost make the kind of experimental, life-sim focus of a game like Daggerfall all but impossible to pursue now, but I miss it. Personally, I’ll usually take a deeply flawed work of sheer ambition over a retread of proven ideas I’ve already experienced before, no matter how skillfully crafted and consistently fun the latter is.
Yeah, I enjoy a good formula game now and then; my point was exactly that when I wrote about Assassin’s Creed Shadows a few months ago. But as much as I have enjoyed Shadows, it won’t stick with me for 30 years. Daggerfall has, and revisiting it this week, I can see that’s not purely because of nostalgia. It represents a maximalist philosophy of game design I feel is sorely underrepresented in today’s market.
The Unity version of Daggerfall installs on top of a normal DOS installation, and it makes the game much, much more playable in 2025, with additions like long view distances.
Credit:
Samuel Axon
If that’s your inclination, too, it’s worth giving Daggerfall a shot. Just make sure to use the far more accessible Daggerfall Unity remaster on top of the GOG classic version you download, and be ready to look at the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages wiki a lot. Make sure you have a couple hundred hours to kill, too.
Oh, that’s all, eh? Hey, you could always make it a project in your retirement.
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