# The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall - Work: Computer RPG - Date: 1996 (MS-DOS) - Made by: Julian LeFay (Director & programmer); Todd Howard (Additional design) - Houses: Bethesda Softworks - Platforms: MS-DOS - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-elder-scrolls-daggerfall/ > Bethesda's 1996 sequel to Arena built a procedurally generated realm the size of Great Britain, with 15,000 places to go, custom classes, vampirism, bank loans and a plot with multiple endings, and shipped full of bugs. **Why it matters:** Daggerfall is the high-water mark of the procedurally generated open-world RPG: an almost unmappable simulation of a whole region in which players could make their own class and life. Its ambition, and its flaws, shaped everything Bethesda built after. ## Quick answers **When was The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall first released?** The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall was first released in 1996 (MS-DOS). **Who created The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall?** The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall was made by Julian LeFay (director & programmer) and Todd Howard (additional design). **Who published or developed The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall?** Bethesda Softworks. **What kind of work is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall?** The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is a computer RPG in the Western Computer RPGs (CRPG) and Open-World RPGs tradition, released for MS-DOS. **Why is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall important?** Daggerfall is the high-water mark of the procedurally generated open-world RPG: an almost unmappable simulation of a whole region in which players could make their own class and life. Its ambition, and its flaws, shaped everything Bethesda built after. ## Overview A shipwreck, a dark cave called Privateer's Hold, and then the whole of the Iliac Bay. *The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall*, released for MS-DOS on September 20, 1996, dropped players into a simulated region of Tamriel roughly the size of Great Britain: some 15,000 towns, villages, dungeons and cities and a population of about 750,000 people, most of them generated by the computer. The Emperor has sent the player to lay to rest the ghost of King Lysandus of Daggerfall and to recover a letter that never reached its destination. Everything else, from which guild to join to whether to spend the next month robbing houses or buying a ship, was left to the player. It remains one of the most ambitious [computer RPGs](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/computer-rpg/) ever released, and one of the most famously buggy. ## Origins [Bethesda Softworks](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bethesda-softworks/) began *Daggerfall* immediately after [*The Elder Scrolls: Arena*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-elder-scrolls-arena/) shipped in March 1994. [Julian LeFay](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/julian-lefay/), who had led *Arena*'s programming, directed and programmed the sequel; Ted Peterson was lead game designer, working with Bruce Nesmith, and a young [Todd Howard](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/todd-howard/), hired by Bethesda in 1994, is credited with additional design. The company acquired MediaTech West in 1995 to help, and the team built a new engine, XnGine, one of the first truly three-dimensional engines used in a roleplaying game. Development took some two and a half years and finished at the end of August 1996. The design leaned on [procedural generation](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/procedural-generation/) to reach a scale no hand-built game could: towns, wilderness and dungeons were generated from rules and seeds, and quests were assembled from templates. Character creation drew openly on [*GURPS*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/gurps/): players could answer a questionnaire to be assigned a class, choose a preset, or build their own from chosen skills, balancing special advantages against self-imposed disadvantages. ## How it plays *Daggerfall* abandoned [experience points](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/experience-points/). A character improves a skill by using it, swinging a sword, picking locks, casting spells, and levels up as their chosen primary and major skills rise. Around that core sits a sprawling social simulation. Players can join guilds, knightly orders, temples and the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, and a reputation system tracks how each faction and each region's nobility regards them. There is a legal system with courts, fines and banishment; banks that grant loans and letters of credit; houses and ships for sale; spell-making and enchanting; and the curses of [vampirism](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/vampire/) and [lycanthropy](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/werewolf/) (werewolves and wereboars), each with its own quest line. The dungeons are the game's most notorious feature: vast, stacked 3D labyrinths in which even experienced players could lose an evening looking for an exit. The main plot braids the courts of the rival kingdoms of Daggerfall, Sentinel and Wayrest with the Blades, the necromancer Mannimarco, the undead Underking, and the Mantella, a device that powers the colossal golem Numidium. Several factions can end up holding it, giving the game a set of mutually exclusive endings; later Elder Scrolls lore resolved the contradiction with the "Warp in the West," a reality-bending event in which every ending happened at once. ## Reception & impact Bethesda shipped about 120,000 copies initially and sold more than 100,000 in two days. Reviews were strong, with a 5/5 from *Next Generation* and 90 percent from *PC Gamer US*, though *PC Zone* gave it 65, and the game won Role-Playing Game of the Year from *Computer Gaming World*, Best RPG of 1996 from *PC Gamer US*, and a Game Developers Conference Spotlight Award. It was also riddled with bugs: crashes, broken quests, and characters falling through the world. LeFay later spoke of wanting to avoid "all the stupid patches" *Daggerfall* had needed. Even so, it sold about 700,000 copies by mid-2000, Bethesda's biggest success to that point. ## Legacy *Daggerfall* marks the point where Bethesda's approach turned. Its successor, [*Morrowind*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-elder-scrolls-morrowind/), traded procedural scale for a smaller, entirely handcrafted island, and every Bethesda world since, through [*Oblivion*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-elder-scrolls-oblivion/) and [*Skyrim*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-elder-scrolls-skyrim/), has followed that path. Yet many of the ideas that define the series first appear at full strength here: use-based skills, faction reputations, player-owned homes, lycanthropy and vampirism, and a world meant to be lived in rather than completed. Its [Sandbox](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/sandbox/) freedom made it a touchstone for the [open-world RPG](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/open-world-rpg/). Bethesda made the game free to download in 2009 for the series' fifteenth anniversary. A fan project, Daggerfall Unity, begun in 2014, rebuilt the game on the Unity engine with mod support and reached completion at the end of 2023, keeping the Iliac Bay walkable on modern machines. ## Facts - Its map covers about 209,331 square kilometers, comparable to Great Britain; one fan's crossing on foot took 69 hours. - Experience points were abolished: skills improve by using them, and characters level as their skills grow. - Players could build their own class, a system influenced by GURPS, and weigh advantages against disadvantages. - Characters could contract vampirism or lycanthropy, borrow from banks, buy houses, and own ships. - The main quest has several endings; later lore reconciled them as the 'Warp in the West,' in which all of them happened at once. - Computer Gaming World named it its Role-Playing Game of the Year. - Bethesda released it as freeware in 2009, the series' 15th anniversary; the fan-made Daggerfall Unity rebuilt it for modern systems. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_II:_Daggerfall) - [UESP: Warp in the West](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Warp_in_the_West) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.