Gavin “Interkarma” Clayton has announced the launch of Daggerfall Unity 1.0, an open-source recreation of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall in the Unity engine that is said to feature “hundreds of fixes, quality of life enhancements, and extensive mod support” for Bethesda’s classic, open-world RPG, which originally released in 1996 for the MS-DOS platform.
“After several years in development, and the efforts of many people, Daggerfall Unity is finally considered complete. The project will now move into post-release community support and maintenance,” Clayton explained before going on to list some of the key improvements that players should find in his modern interpretation of the game, including new lighting, “huge draw distances,” high-resolution widescreen support, and much more:
Daggerfall Unity 1.0 Features
- Cross-platform without emulation (Windows/Linux/Mac)
- Retro graphics are boosted by modern engine and lighting
- High resolution widescreen with classic style
- Optionally play in retro mode 320×200 or 640×400 with VGA palettes
- Optionally overhaul the graphics and gameplay with mods
- Huge draw distances even without mods
- Smooth first-person controls
- Quality of life enhancements
- Extensive mod support with an active creator community
- Translation support via community mods
Installation also appears to be simple, according to instructions that Clayton shared: “You can get a free copy of DOS Daggerfall from Steam and a free copy of Daggerfall Unity from the Releases page. Then simply unzip the latest version of Daggerfall Unity to its own folder and point it to the DOS version. Daggerfall Unity will take care of everything else.”
System Requirements
Minimum
- Operating system: Windows, Linux, MacOS
- Processor: Intel i3 (Skylake) equivalent
- Graphics: DirectX 11 capable with 1GB video memory and up-to-date drivers
- Memory: 2GB system RAM
Recommended
- Operating system: Windows, Linux, MacOS
- Processor: Intel i5 (Skylake) equivalent
- Graphics: GTX 660 with 2GB video memory and up-to-date drivers
- Memory: 4GB system RAM
As hinted in the features list above, Daggerfall Unity 1.0 also includes support for many mods, with some of the highlights being DREAM, a mod that overhauls the graphics of the game, and Quest Pack 1, a mod that adds 195 new quests to the game.
“The Daggerfall Remaster Enchanted Art Mod (DREAM) upgrades game assets including sound, music, videos & all graphics found in the game,” Clayton explained. “It goes beyond a restoration and additionally fixes the old quirks, bugs and increases variety/fidelity everywhere possible.”
Bethesda released Daggerfall for free in 2009 to celebrate the 15th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls franchise.
“One thing to keep in mind — the game is over 10-years-old and we’re releasing it ‘as is.’ In other words, we’re not providing customer support or technical support on the game at this point,” Bethesda said at the time.