It is hard to imagine that The Elder Scrolls series has 5 main games in the series and that the latest entry in the series came out nearly a decade ago. Those who want that fantasy exploration fix might want to consider looking back at the older Elder Scrolls titles.
No, not Morrowind—although that game is fantastic in its own way. Further back to the first two games: Arena and Daggerfall. While there is some preparatory work needed to make Daggerfall work on modern operating systems, it's an experience that still holds up to this day, even if Skyrim shows Daggerfall's age in some aspects. Here are 5 reasons why Daggerfall is the best Elder Scrolls game in the franchise and 5 reasons why it's Skyrim.
10 Daggerfall: Spell Crafting
In most Elder Scrolls titles, mages could craft spells to suit their needs. Unfortunately, every game since Daggerfall has progressively worsened this mechanic until it was removed altogether in Skyrim.
And just as Spell Crafting has been removed, so too has multiple schools of magic like Mysticism and thaumaturgy. The number of magic schools in Daggerfall allowed for an unprecedented level of customization for mage spells. You could levitate, walk on walls, or summon fireballs that then summoned skeletons. If you can imagine it, you could make it in Daggerfall.
9 Skyrim: Combat
Daggerfall uses a die-rolling system similar to Morrowind. It fits Daggerfall better because of its age, but the transition to action-based combat in Oblivion made the series play magnitudes better.
Skyrim further improved the formula by adding dual-wielding as a mechanic, letting magic users use two spells at once or allowing melee characters to wield two one-handed weapons at once. Feedback was significantly improved as well, including violent executions and impacts on targets. It doesn't hold a candle to Dark Souls or other action-focused games, but with the size and scale of The Elder Scrolls, its a miracle using bows or magic is as satisfying as it is.
8 Daggerfall: Player Customization
Skyrim took a new approach with leveling your character compared to previous installments. In Skyrim, players level by using skills they enjoy and spend perk points on what interests them.
While it works amazing for that game, Daggerfall shows how excellent the inverse of that can be. Players spend character creation choosing base attributes, skill proficiencies, along with strengths and weaknesses specific to that character. You might make a character who can absorb Magicka from enemy spells but can't wear any form of heavy armor. The ability for players to impose self-made restrictions and bonuses at character creation draws parallels to Dungeons & Dragons in the best way possible.
7 Skyrim: Visuals
While Skyrim is a rather small game by today's standards in terms of world scope, the vistas and plains you'll come across are still breathtaking to this day.
Graphically, Skyrim is in a rough spot compared to games like The Witcher 3. Unless modded, the game will look subpar from a technical perspective. The art design, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Armor looks intimidating from level one, bandits and dragons alike are a joy to see, and the way the world presents itself after the end of a dungeon or the peak of a trail makes for amazing eye candy despite its age.
6 Daggerfall: Little Focus On Questing
Daggerfall does have a main story, but the player can safely ignore it to instead explore the surrounding landscape. Side missions are all randomized with the sole purpose of encouraging exploration.
Unlike Skyrim, Daggerfall lets players ignore quest givers altogether and instead focus on non-combat systems. You can get loans from banks and purchase property, or explore the sea by purchasing your own boat! Goals in Daggerfall are mostly loose and based on what the player wishes to accomplish instead of focusing on following waypoints and finishing quests. It takes the term sandbox to its absolute limit.
5 Skyrim: Large Focus On Questing
On the polar opposite of the spectrum, Skyrim has a massive focus on doing side missions for NPCs and the various factions that dot the landscape.
Just like Daggerfall, you can ignore the main quest and focus on other things, but there are so many side missions Bethesda made you'd be insane not to play through them. Whether you are turning into a werewolf for the first time or remembering a drunken night out with a Daedric Prince, Skyrim has enough quests to keep players engaged for thousands of hours and dozens of playthroughs. You would need a rather advanced radiant AI system to replicate that kind of hand-crafted style of quest.
4 Daggerfall: Amount Of Gameplay Systems
Mentioned earlier, Daggerfall has so many gameplay systems that it is hard to imagine The Elder Scrolls series included them in the first place.
Players can take loans from banks, own a boat, purchase a horse carriage that carries loot from dungeons, use athletics to run on walls, and that is just the tip of the massive iceberg that is Daggerfall. You can even appear in court to explain your case to prevent getting in jail! Daggerfall took the "live another life" philosophy of The Elder Scrolls to a whole other level.
3 Skyrim: Dungeon Design
While Daggerfall does contain thousands of dungeons, almost all of them are lackluster due to how they were randomly generated. Skyrim suffers from none of these issues.
After feedback from fans that Oblivion's dungeons were too similar and not engaging, Bethesda decided to make each dungeon in Skyrim unique from each other. Puzzles, unique enemies, and mythical weapons could lie in each tomb to help tell a story. This design philosophy of environmental storytelling was carried over to caves, crypts, and the general landscape of Skyrim as a whole. It helps with immersion tremendously and helps encourage exploration.
2 Daggerfall: Exploration
As vast as Skyrim might appear to be, its world size is rather small at 16 square miles of space. For comparison, The Witcher 3 is around 84 square miles.
So if The Witcher 3 is so big, how large can a game meant for DOS operating systems be? It is estimated that Daggerfall is over 62,000 square miles. Yes, we just jumped from 84 square miles to 62,000 square miles. And thanks to the constant side quests players can partake in, there is no reason not to go out into the world and explore its various dungeons and hub areas. Even for a game this old, each location manages to be distinct from each other in biomes and its inhabitants. There is still content in this game, over two decades later, that no one has seen yet because of how large it is.
1 Skyrim: Mods
Modding video games has been reserved for PCs for as long as gaming has been a thing. That is until Bethesda found a way to incorporate modding onto consoles with Skyrim: Special Edition.
Now, all three platforms can modify the game to their heart's content. Nearly any issue you have with Skyrim someone else likely has as well, and they might have happened to create a mod that fixes that issue. If you find the game too boring or buggy, you can easily fix it. If you can think it, there's a mod for it. Few games have a mod roster as large as Skyrim.