The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
North American box art by Louise Sandoval
Developer(s)Bethesda Softworks
MediaTech West[1]
Publisher(s)Bethesda Softworks
Director(s)Julian Lefay
Designer(s)Julian Lefay
Bruce Nesmith
Ted Peterson
Programmer(s)Hal Bouma
Julian Lefay
Artist(s)Mark K. Jones
Hoang Nguyen
Louise Sandoval
Composer(s)Eric Heberling
SeriesThe Elder Scrolls
EngineXnGine
Platform(s)MS-DOS
Release
  • NA: September 20, 1996
  • UK: November 1, 1996
Genre(s)Action role-playing
Mode(s)Single-player

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is an open-world, action role-playing game published by Bethesda Softworks. The second video game in the Elder Scrolls series, it was released on September 20, 1996 for MS-DOS, following the success of 1994's The Elder Scrolls: Arena. The story follows the player, sent by the Emperor, to free the ghost of King Lysandus from his earthly shackles and discover what happened to a letter sent from the Emperor to the former queen of Daggerfall.

Compared to its predecessor, Arena, the player can now only travel within two provinces in Tamriel: High Rock and Hammerfell; however, Daggerfall consists of 15,000 cities, towns, villages, and dungeons for the character to explore. Arena's experience-point based system was replaced with a system that rewards the player for utilizing role-playing elements within the game.[2] Daggerfall includes more customization options, featuring an improved character generation engine, as well as a GURPS-influenced class creation system, offering players the chance to create their own classes and assign their own skills.[3][4]

The game was a critical and commercial success, with sales around 700,000 copies by 2000. The game was followed by The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind in 2002. In 2009, to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Elder Scrolls franchise, Daggerfall was made free to download from the Bethesda website.[5]

  1. ^ Andriesen, David (March 15, 1998). "Gaming guru finds home for company in Olympia". The Olympian. p. 68. Archived from the original on July 31, 2022. Retrieved August 2, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference DFBTS was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference NGM 1995 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference TEDDERS was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Thompson, Michael (July 10, 2009). "Bethesda releasing Daggerfall for free". Arstechnica.com. Archived from the original on December 5, 2011. Retrieved December 2, 2011.