(DISCLAIMER: Daggerfall Unity 1.0 has released as of 31st December 2023. I no longer recommend the GOG Cut as it is very outdated and I've noticed a LOT of people online have reported problems and instability with it. Just use DFU 1.0 and install DREAM for the extra eye-candy. The core gameplay points in this review are unchanged.)

Even though it had its fair share of flaws (like an almost unfinishable main quest and boring random dungeon design), I thoroughly enjoyed The Elder Scrolls, Chapter 1: Arena for its world, lore and most of all, its stellar handcrafted dungeons. Only a few years after Arena, Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls, Chapter 2: Daggerfall and this is where the Elder Scrolls series went from "we really, really like Ultima games" to "we're carving our own path here". Daggerfall is a behemoth of a game in more ways than one and while it has a LOT of clunkyness and mid-90s jank, it deserves your attention if you're a fan of RPG games.

As I noted in the disclaimer, I used the GoG cut which can be run through Steam to track playtime. This version is heavily modded with numerous graphic mods and some nice QoL features, but otherwise leaves the core gameplay fairly intact. That version is now defunct, and I would say it's a no-brainer to install Daggerfall Unity 1.0 because it makes the game so much more accessible purely from a technical standpoint (native widescreen and high resolution support, modern keybinds etc.).

DFU 1.0, for a Unity port of a game from 1996, already looks awesome by itself and it works well on modern systems. If you have a few minutes to spare, I highly recommend installing DREAM - just copy over some files and tweak a setting or two, all described in the official PDF instructions, and you get great lighting, crisp textures and sprites while still maintaining that slightly cartoonish early Elder Scrolls artstyle. Sound is standard 90s MIDI fare, DREAM adds some more tracks and some tracks from Arena are reused, but overall, the music is good and it will stick in your head.

As far as gameplay is concerned, I will mention the dungeon-crawling aspect first, because that's what you'll be doing the most. The core gameplay loop for a lot of quests is "get quest, usually go to a huge, sprawling, labirynthian dungeon, return, sell loot, repeat". The random dungeons in Daggerfall are INSANELY big and convoluted, in part due to procedural generation. I liked this part of the game the most because I like exploring and navigating tough environments, but it's definitely a gameplay loop that a lot of people might find gets really old, really fast. Despite Daggerfall's many strengths, I hoped that the main story dungeons would be as good and memorable as Arena's, and to be fair, some of them are. But despite them being handcrafted, they don't really feel like it and sometimes it feels like they're obtuse for obtuseness' sake.
Like Arena, this game is also incredibly unforgiving. You will catch disease, get bitten by werewolves, get paralyzed or silenced, and if you don't have counters to those, well, you're outta luck. Luckily, there is so much information online these days that it's easy to find a playstyle that works for you and that makes the combat a lot more palatable. And like all Elder Scrolls games, it is fairly easy to get ridiculously, BROKENLY overpowered with just a few enchantments, spells or potions.

That said, unlike Arena's rather paltry assortment of quests, Daggerfall's quests, while still randomly generated, have a wide range of premises a lot more varied than Arena. You have delivery quests, escort quests and fetch quests like before, but you'll also be settling lovers' quarrels, answering riddles, cooling hotheaded duellists or duelling yourself, smuggle or steal things, exorcise children, save beggars from witch covens (or join them), help nobles fall asleep, talk with vampires (or hunt them), etc. It's a welcome addition and it greatly extends the game's longevity while providing that all-important roleplaying aspect. Wanna be a do-gooder for the nobles? Join a Knightly Order or just ask the nobles for a quest yourself. Wanna help out the common man? Ask the merchants, innkeepers or their patrons. Wanna be renown in the underworld? Join the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild and do their quests. The possibilites are nigh-endless. The world, IMMENSE. If a region hates you, just buzz off and start anew somewhere else.

And that's because Daggerfall really is a Role-Playing Game in the purest sense of the word. There are a lot of background systems like reputation with certain factions, Guilds and royal families that affect both the quests they give you, how they talk to you (if they talk to you at all), what services the Guilds provide and so on. Your choices have consequences and you can lean into them to play the role you chose. You can side with the traitors, side with the underdogs, plunge the world into chaos, save it or preserve the status quo. The choice really is yours. And that's what makes Daggerfall so great. YOU are the driving force behind what's going on in your world and the world you inhabit.

There is so much more I'd love to say about this game but I feel like I'm already overstaying my welcome, so I'll just wrap up with this. Yes, there are more accessible Elder Scrolls games, although Daggerfall Unity 1.0 does a great job of making this game appealing to modern gamers. Most of the dialogue and quest information is text and pop-ups, and the game is clunky and a bit cartoonish. But the "make your own fun" nature and the sheer amount of possibilities this game offers through its character creations, dialogue interactions and quests choices makes Daggerfall absolutely worth playing.