While you could configure classic to use mouselook and WSAD, it still didn’t feel very good. When it came to controls, an easy choice was to skip the clunky cursor-based default control scheme and work on getting it right as a first-person game with smooth mouselook and WSAD-styled controls. “I found I could take advantage of higher pixel density on modern displays to make the UI scaling cleaner while still looking retro. “I added scrollbars, mouse wheel support, tooltips, smoother fonts, more reactive buttons, and crisp, responsive controls, just to list a few early enhancements,” Clayton says. I was hesitant to play the sequel even though I’d heard great things because of how much of a headache Arena - the first game - was, but then I stumbled on Daggerfall Unity, a giant project seeking to address people like me. I managed to slog through the first Elder Scrolls a couple of years ago, back when I first got in contact with Clayton. The changes made to The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall in Clayton’s remake do wonders for opening it up to modern audiences. This was a stark contrast to how flat Daggerfall ended up being with only the occasional jagged bumps.” “For example, I found an early concept screenshot showing rolling terrain with a town right up against a hill and noted that elevation data was still in the game files.
“I looked at early screenshots and read old developer interviews, trying to get a sense of what Daggerfall wanted to be relative to how it arrived,” Clayton says.
Not only did he seek to open Daggerfall’s rusted gate after years of being clamped shut, he also brought back axed ideas and pushed the game’s boundaries thanks to new tech at his disposal. RELATED: Michael Gough Talks Skyrim, Gears Of War, Resident Evil, And Moreīut Clayton took it a step further. That is until Gavin Clayton started a project to bring Daggerfall to the Unity engine, overhauling it to be more approachable and intuitive for new players.
It’s a vital entry into Bethesda’s catalogue, but further evolutions in the genre saw it become an obtuse, archaic relic. It introduced the Dark Brotherhood, gave Khajiit tails, and featured dragons nearly 20 years before Skyrim pitted us against them.
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“Keeping the momentum through all this has been challenging.”ĭaggerfall launched in 1996, propelling The Elder Scrolls from being a fairly bog-standard action RPG into something special with many now-iconic hallmarks of the series making their debut. “Since 2019, things have progressed from ‘a bit burned out’ to standing in the ashes of burnout and fighting on anyway,” Daggerfall Unity creator Gavin Clayton tells me.