The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall is a landmark in gaming that set some standards for RPGs going forwards. It took what worked in Arena and doubled down, expanding the lore, designing interesting quests, and creating one of the most customizable character creation systems that exists to this day.
While players are still hungry for news of The Elder Scrolls 6, they may wish to take a look back at Daggerfall. While the graphics look dated and it is renowned for its bugs, it is still an iconic piece of fantasy RPG history, and it’s impossible to ignore the influences it has had on modern gaming.
10 Wereboars Exist
While Lycanthropy and Vampirism have long been parts of Tamriel’s lore, it was not the Bloodmoon expansion pack for Morrowind that introduced alternatives to werewolves. In Daggerfall players can encounter wereboars in addition to werewolves. While not seen in-game, there also exist werecrocodiles, werevultures, and even weresharks.
Living as a lycanthrope in Daggerfall is not as bad as it sounds, just like in future games. They get large bonuses to their combat stats that persist even in their regular form, they are immune to disease, and any crimes committed in their were-form are tracked separately — making it an excellent character choice for a less moral player.
9 Niche Conversational Skills
The incredibly varied character creation system that Daggerfall has contains some options that some players may find slightly bizarre. Among these are the many conversational skills that you can put points in, such as Centaurian, Impish, and Daedric. These let you learn the language of a certain type of monster and give you a chance of making these monsters non-hostile when encountered.
Most interestingly, Orcish is one of these skills. Just like in Arena, Orcs were not yet a playable race and were present in the game only as enemy creatures to fight.
8 The Holy Order Of Fighting
Daggerfall contains many different guilds and organizations that you can join and access. One of these is the Fighter’s Guild, known far and wide for their basement-clearing quests and brave members. You can come to these guilds to repair equipment, pick up quests and train up your combat skill.
Notably, though, some of these Fighter’s Guilds seem to have a dual purpose in the region of Hammerfell, home of the Redguards. Here, Fighter’s Guilds double up as Temples for their settlements and are open all day long, instead of the usual 11:00 to 23:00 working hours that the guild usually observe. Despite not having priests, they definitely count as holy grounds – vampires even take damage there!
7 Khajiit Finally Have Tails
While Arena included Khajiit as a playable race and describes them as “descended from an intelligent feline race,” it is only in Daggerfall do they begin to resemble the catlike sapient race that we know and love today. They finally have tails and are stated to paint their face in a feline fashion, in the style of their ancestors.
Later games would explain these discrepancies between games by introducing the concept of so many different types of Khajiit depending on what phase the moon was in when they were born. As a result, the Khajiit of Arena are all of the man-like Ohmes variety (which does not have a tail), and Daggerfall’s Khajiits are the similar yet be-tailed Ohmes-raht variety.
6 The Warp In The West
Players of the more recent Elder Scrolls games may be familiar with the book “The Warp In The West.” It describes a fantastical event (known as a Dragon Break) where the universe appears to have given up, letting many antithetical things happen all at once.
This is how the Elder Scrolls universe handled the seven different possible endings of Daggerfall. Instead of sticking a canon ending onto the end of the game, they made every ending canon to a certain extent, and expanded the lore significantly as a result.
5 Summoning At Great Lengths
Daggerfall started the tradition of including the iconic Daedric Princes and having them dole out specific quests to the player character. These are often themed after the Daedric Prince’s whims and domains and help to build up a better picture of the universe’s lore.
In this game, however, Daedra must be summoned, and this is a costly process that can only be done on specific days. Outside of specific circumstances (such as the Glenmoril Witch coven being keenly associated with the Daedric prince Hircine), this means that you may end up having to wait a long time for your chance at completing a Daedric quest. It can be worth the wait, however, as the rewards are often very useful.
4 Backstabbers Beware
In an odd choice that will leave Dark Souls players seething, backstabs in Daggerfall are not automatic. In fact, there is a skill that directly affects a character’s ability to perform these critical strikes on their foes. One would think that being able to get behind an enemy in the first place would be a high-enough barrier, but not so.
In Daggerfall, every strike at the back of an enemy checks the player’s Backstabbing skill. What this does mean, however, is that the nice 3x damage bonus can happen multiple times, rather than the singular Sneak bonus that players enjoy in future Elder Scrolls games.
3 Reputation Is Key
While this system would be explored a little in Morrowind and Oblivion, it was at its deepest and most complex in Daggerfall. Reputation is affected by almost everything the player does and there are countless factions that are tracked in-game. Everything from various vampire families to city guilds to the various Daedric princes of Oblivion have their political power and opinions of the player’s reputation tracked.
Do too many vampiric quests? Prepare to be disliked by mostly everyone. Fail a nobleman’s quest? They’ll like you precisely 22 points less than before. It’s a complex system in that these reputation changes even apply to related factions. That nobleman’s associates will also dislike you a bit if you fail the nobleman’s quest. It’s a tough balancing act for new players to handle.
2 Get A Move On
In a game (and indeed, franchise) that has a penchant for throwing so many quests at you, it can be a frustrating revelation that many of these quests are timed. While these time limits are usually lenient enough to give you some breathing room, it can be a chore to keep up with a journal that keeps filling up with tasks.
Running out of time to complete a quest can be especially annoying, as it means a failed quest and reputation loss with the quest giver’s factions. Luckily, there are masses of quests in Daggerfall to alleviate this issue – you will never be without something to do.
1 Daggerfall For Free
Like Arena before it, Daggerfall was made freeware by Bethesda some years after its release. Despite the game being a little dated and absolutely full of bugs (ah, Bethesda…) it is still a fun experience that fans of the franchise should seriously consider.
Additionally, there is also a fan project called Daggerfall Unity which aims to recreate the game in the Unity engine, improving the game’s architecture and modding abilities! It requires the original game files but, as mentioned, these are free to obtain now. Details of the project can be found here.
NEXT: Elder Scrolls: The Most Confusing Aspects Of The Timeline, Ranked
