C:\ArsGames We love games here at the Ars Orbiting HQ, from modern to ancient and all points in between. With that in mind, we've partnered with the folks at GOG.com to create a store page featuring a hand-curated list of some of our favorites from GOG's catalog. At the end of every month, we'll rotate a couple of titles off the list and add a few new ones; all together, we have a list of about 50 games to set in front of you. Twice a month, we'll publish a personal retrospective like this one, where we'll feature one of the games from the list—perhaps a retro game you've heard of, perhaps a modern title you missed. Regardless, GOG will have a DRM-free version of the game ready to go. Be sure to check out our first two articles in the series, Star Trek 25th Anniversary and Descent!
Ostensibly, C:\ArsGames is to some extent about actually driving a few game purchases, but in reality it's mostly an excuse for me and my colleagues to wax nostalgic about the games that were formative for us. Case in point: This entry in our ongoing series with GOG is about a game that's completely free. I think Ars can withstand this tiny revenue shortfall for the sake of peak nostalgia!
There are a couple of reasons I chose The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall this time around: its co-creator, Julian LeFay, recently passed away, so it seemed timely. Also, it was one of the defining games of my youth—one I have continued to revisit now and then.
But it's also interesting because of where its developer, Bethesda—a studio people both love and hate—is at today. Going back to Daggerfall, we find a game that shows off so much of what we've lost from the bygone era of '90s PC gaming, but also one that makes it abundantly clear why the industry left those sensibilities behind.
I'll spoil the conclusion though: I still love this game. It's profoundly not for everybody, but it's definitely for me.
The kids don’t get it
OK, so we've established that I love Daggerfall. Knowing Ars Technica's readership, some of you probably do too. So who, exactly, doesn't like it?
Just search YouTube and you'll find a bunch of videos with titles like:
Ouch. That's rough. Granted, one of those isn't actually negative if you sit through the video, but it still acknowledges that it's not easily accessible for everyone.
Look, I get it. Daggerfall hails from an era when "game design" primarily meant "experiment with programming techniques to come up with cool, unproven stuff no one's seen before" rather than "meticulously craft a conveyor belt of nonstop fun via proven formulae."