Bethesda's classic The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall goes free

by Randy Nelson on Jul 10th 2009 12:00AM

With good old games being appreciated more than ever -- as evidenced by yesterday's arrival of classic LucasArts titles on Steam -- we can welcome another retro fave, Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, to the growing ranks of "remember-when-ware" -- for free. The game, which paved the way for a more modern classic, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, is now available for download via the developer's site but won't run right out of the box ... er, zip file.

Since the game files are exactly the same as they were in the original 1996 release, they require DOS to run. Thankfully, Bethesda has provided a link to the freeware DOS emulator, DOSBox, as well as detailed instructions on how to get the game up-and-running using it. How thoughtful! So, if you're an Elder Scrolls fan -- or just like yourself a good RPG -- the deals don't come much better than this. Just remember: it's not always the looks that count.

[Via Shacknews]

Source

Tags: bethesda, Bethesda-Softworks, daggerfall, free, freeware, the-elder-scrolls-ii-daggerfall

Reader Comments (59)

Sweet jesus yes! Isn't this the Elder Scrolls that was the size of Great Britain?

A tad smaller really but close yes. Great Britain is like nearly 81k square miles where as 62.5k or so.

Still, quite freakin' large.

This may actually be worth a play. I remember having to return this the year it came out because my computer wasn't up to the task of running it smoothly.

Nowadays it might make a decent iPhone game or similar too

I've never played the older ES games, only started with Morrowind. I'll try and download this one sometime this week, I've always wanted to try it. Is Arena also free?

Also... If you are using OS X and want a great DOSbox frontend, I'd recommend Boxer. Seriously one of the nicest apps EVER, though it hasn't been updated since last December.

http://boxer.washboardabs.net/

"Is Arena also free?" - Why yes, yes it is. Wicked!

holy crap dude, thanks for the link and download. You seriously saved me a hassle of not being able to play Elder Scrolls in the comfort of my bed.

+1

I think it's time to dust off the old iMac in the back room to play Daggerfall on.

Dope.

No mention of the blatant nudity in the game either? For shame. :P

that's like almost the best part!

also "the real barenziah", before the temple got ahold of it ;)

It'll be in there since it's the same as the 96 release. Which also means the bugs are in there. (the kind you can't kill with a sword)
Watch out for the stairs!

Man I remember those WTF moments. "And now I'm in between the walls"

Actually, they include 2.13 so it's at that level at least. You might also be able to load the unofficial patches as well.

Three cheers for sprites!

Next up: Rise of the Triad.

It's about time Fallout 1 and 2 went freeware as well.

I recently downloaded them off Demonoid (I own both on cd, however they do not run without a crack on xp or vista, even in emulation mode.) and have been reliving those great days. Old? Yes. Still fun? You bet.

or you could just buy them off GOG and not, you know, pirate them...

@t_m

He already owns them dumbass.

I don't see them going freeware very soon, given that they just issued a Fallout 1 + 2 + Tactics bundle for retail.

I think game companies are finally realizing that games that don't sell anymore should go free.

I mean Rockstar is doing it, Tribes 1 and 2 went free, MW4 is going free, and now Bethesda is free. This just shows they love their fans.

remember-when-ware™

now if only Freelancer, X-com, and X-Wing went free....

Actually as cheap as the X-COM titles are on steam there is no reason not to play them again!

Daggerfall was great, though I think I had more fun exploiting all the bugs and glitches than actually playing the game.

yeah, i don't think you were doing it right esc

Seriously, how hard is it to type 'player.additem f 9999999'?

And in the space of a minute, I've only downloaded 1.4 megs total. With cable internet...

....This is going to take awhile.

Oh good. I'm glad that its not just me. This download should've been over and done in a couple of minutes at the most. Firefox is telling me the download will take 2 and a half hours. I'm pretty sure that's not right.

What's a better way to give a free old game out with 28.8K modem speeds. the 2.4kb/s & downloads finishing early with errors takes me back.

Oh shit! That is awesome! I actually almost bought this game the other day, but used copies are still going for like $35 on Amazon and eBay. I've been wanting to play this game forever, but just never got around to it.

Thanks for being awesome Bethesda!

Looks like the prices are about to drop. Being officially released for free can do that to a game's worth.

BTW should anyone care...

Mirror at FireFront: http://www.filefront.com/14005983/The-Elder-Scrolls-Daggerfall-Full-Free-Game/

thanks. doing it from bethesda's site is slow as hell.

Ah, good. Something about a 10-hour download for 149 megs seemed a bit ridiculous.

FAVORITE. GAME. EVER.

yeah awesome game. But sometimes you could get hopefully lost in the gigantic dungeons... I lost a few save files that way. Of course I was only like eight years old and there's probably a spell to get out of dungeons, but still.

Gotta love how when you kill townsfolk they turn into splashes of blood with no body.

Bethesda rocks.

(though i have a boxed copy around somewhere.... )
I acutally bought and returned this game about 3 times. the bugs are infuriating, but there is something magical there....

there was a fan-made patch that fixed a huge number of bugs, made it much more stable, and added a load of features. I don't remember the name though.

PS// SAVE OFTEN!!
PPS// Get mark and recall before entering dungons!

Has anyone gotten this to work with Boxer for the Mac? Boxer tells me this is a Microsoft Windows file and requires Bootcamp to run...

I tried playing this back when Morrowind was first released, and just couldn't get my head around the controls.. Has no one made a patch for mouse/keyboard yet? Also, there's so many bugs the game is nigh impossible to actually finish.

It's always had mouse/keyboard support. A few of the default controls were a bit weird, but i used to run it with basically standard FPS controls.

Switching between different interaction modes was a pain though... i'd always forget i was in STEAL MODE and get arrested for trying to talk to someone...

Absolutely fantastic! Now I wish I could run this on my DS. For those new to the game, you can read about it at http://www.gamestiq.net/2009/07/elder-scrolls-daggerfall-turns.html

Oh goody, please tell me there's a patch out there that makes this and Arena compatible with newer hardware. I played Arena on DOSBox, it was extremely SLOW.

Yeah, I just got Arena and it was really slow on my Dosbox too. Increasing the CPU cycles to around 15000 seemed to help it though (control+F12 a bunch of times).

All games looked a lot like Doom back then.

The download speed makes me feel like it's 1996 again, which is great since that makes the game look like it was released just yesterday.

Dink Smallwood?

Nice.

And no, I didn't post because your screenname is funny; I actually "run" (by that I mean occasionally eyeball) the biggest Dink fansite there is.

That's cool! Nice to see I'm not the only one who still remembers good ol' Dink! Kinda hard to forget that CRAZY! FUNNY!-little game, even if it's been ages since I last played it. Beheading ducks was never so much fun!

This game was incredible, and I appreciated it a lot more than either morrowind or oblivion. Maybe because I had a shit-ton of free time at that point in my life or because it was the first real "open world" game. The only thing holding this game back was its EXTREME bugginess. You probably couldn't play for more than an hour without getting booted back into DOS.

Also I think the "uncanny valley" sort of thing appeared in the later ones, as the better graphics betrayed the weaknesses in each, whereas the doom-esque sprites in Daggerfall really made you use your imagination more. Maybe I'm just old but 90's pc games really did bring out a lot more imagination.

Well how can I say no to a free game?

DOOM tastes like chicken because chicken tastes like everything.

My favorite Elder Scrolls game. For new players: like others said, always use Mark before entering a dungeon so you can Recall out. Out of a bug, or just out because it's a long walk.

Is it already on torrents?

Because the dl speed is also of old DOS times - 2.8KB/s on average... :(

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Bethesda's classic The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall goes free

Reader Comments (59)

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