Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Daggerfall in Unity?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 27, 2015

There have been several projects to remake Daggerfall. But this is… different. Although I know it can’t be as good as I imagine, I am excited about the potential of this toolset. I guess that’s how I know I am a game developer at heart. I see something like this, and I don’t think, “Ooh, I could play a Daggerfall remake!” I think, “Holy cow, what could I make with this?” Of course, given all the other stuff that has to be made to turn something like this into an actual RPG, what I might make might be suspiciously similar to Frayed Knights: The Khan of Wrath right now.

The toolset is really intended for people to make their own Daggerfall re-creations / spinoffs / whatever. It reads in the actual data files from the original game (which is free from Bethesda) and allows you to do all kinds of stuff with it. Mainly in the style of the original, 20-year-old game.  There’s a lot you can do without any coding, and even more you can do if you don’t mind writing a little code, incorporating more content / code from third parties (like AI packs), or using some of the tools developed by the community.

For those who missed it, one of the killer things about Daggerfall (even moreso than its predecessor, Arena) was the scope. You want to talk about procedural / sandbox worlds? The world of Daggerfall was immense. There were some semi-custom towns, NPCs, and dungeons in the game (including some trippy alternate dimension stuff) if you followed the main plot, but following the main plot wasn’t even just optional… the game actively tried to derail you. Fail to be in the right spot at the right time, and you might never be able to “finish” the main storyline. Not that it mattered that much. Daggerfall was kind of a fantasy-world simulator where you just made your own way.

But – with this toolkit – there could be some new life left in that antique world. Like the holy grail of Daggerfall fans in the mid-90s… multiplayer! Yeah, adventure in the actual dungeons of the second Elder Scrolls game with a partner. That would be… kinda cool, if not exactly the bomb now in 2015.


Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



  • McTeddy said,

    This is indeed exciting. Daggerfall is my personal favorite elder scrolls game and I would love to see what people do with this.

  • Eric Wiggins said,

    This is so awesome. I love Daggerfall even though I never got very far (if that’s even a thing).

    I remember loitering in the shops until it closed and then stealing everything they had and getting away with it, lol.

    Good times

  • Xenovore said,

    Meh.

    Don’t get me wrong, I loved Daggerfall and it would be awesome to play a game like Daggerfall again, but realistically we’re talking MMORPG scale here, particularly if there’s an expectation for multi-player support.

    Some code that let’s you load up Daggerfall content and run around. . . not going to cut it.

    And devs should come up with something new, rather than try to piggy-back off Daggerfall.

top