The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is important for any number of reasons: Its pioneering place in a series that would go on to include Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, to the fact it was a Game of the Year winner in its own right. The thing is, the game is a 3D adventure from 1996, and trying to play it in 2022 sucks.
Not through any fault of its own! For the 90s it was doing its thing. It’s just that early 3D games didn’t have the same universal smoothness and ease of movement that we associate with more modern titles, and so for anyone more familiar with the series’ later games, trying to play Daggerfall today would be a struggle, especially when it comes to combat.
Or, they would be if they were trying to play the original 1996 release (above). What they could be doing instead is playing the wonderful Daggerfall Unity - GOG Cut, which has just hit Good Old Games. It’s not an official Bethesda release; rather, it’s the work of a team of modders whose work has been packaged together for release on the shopfront:
Play a reimagined version of the all-time RPG classic from The Elder Scrolls series. Daggerfall Unity – GOG Cut brings this amazing experience to modern gamers. It has been made possible thanks to a whole team of passionate creators working under the banner of Daggerfall Unity.
This ambitious project, launched over a decade ago by Gavin “Interkarma” Clayton, is aiming to bring the unique experience of the classic open-world RPG game to a new generation of gamers. Thanks to the efforts of the GamerZakh, a gaming content creator with a love for classics, you can now enjoy a special GOG Cut of the Daggerfall Unity title.
All you have to do is download the game and simply launch it. The GOG Cut of Daggerfall Unity doesn’t require any special actions or updates on your behalf. Thanks to settings and mods that were selected by GamerZakh you can explore the rich world of Daggerfall with enhanced visuals and gameplay.
There are high-resolution visuals (remade entirely in Unity, hence the name) with new lighting, much longer draw distances, support for mods, and most importantly a number of quality of life tweaks, including smoother first-person controls.
You can download the pack for free, and check out the full list of modders involved, at GOG’s site.