Download The Elder Scrolls II for free

By Ellie Gibson Published 10 July, 2009

To celebrate the series' 15th birthday.

Bethesda has dusted off The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall and made it available as a free download.

It's to celebrate the series' 15th anniversary, don't you know. Daggerfall was first released in 1996, so don't expect flashy HD graphics or any such new-fangled nonsense. You'll need an emulator, but the download page will point you in the right direction.

Daggerfall is so old it predates Eurogamer so we don't have a review in the archives. But here's one we've just made up based on the game's wikipedia entry: Full of bugs. Looks like it was made in 1996. You can be a werewolf though. Also it has tits. 10/10.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mkreku #1 3 years ago

    I just wish they had released either the source code and/or some mod tools for this too.. I mean, this game is BEGGING for a high resolution mod! Or for some genius to make the software renderer into a hardware renderer.. Yeah, likely :p

    Still great news!

  • the_dudefather #2 3 years ago

    There needs to be more werewolf games

  • skillian #3 3 years ago

    Reads more like a 9.

  • nikobe #4 3 years ago

    Couldn't it have been Elderscrolls III at least that's still playable

  • DFawkes #5 3 years ago

    Best review ever. If it's a 10/10 and free, I'll have a look :)

  • kangarootoo #6 3 years ago

    This game had some great features, and I loved it to bits at the time, but it has aged badly. You wait till you meet a bat in a dungeon, the sound it makes will shatter the leneses of your rose tinted glasses.

    One thing it should have taught ES 3 and 4 though, is that climbing into roofs is fun.


    (something I learned today, the word "rooves", plural of roof, apparently no longer exists. When the hell did THAT happen?)

  • Xerx3s #7 3 years ago

    Daggerfall was ace but the bugs made it unplayable for me.

  • kangarootoo #8 3 years ago

    Christ, I had forgotten just how stupendously huge this game was. Just ojne region of the map is almmost as large as Oblivion. Of course, size isn't everything, but it just shows how "old school" rpgs were back then.

    Also, getting stuck in collision is common, but there is some key stroke combination for bumping your character upwards about 10 inches. I can't remember what it is, but just so you know it exists (and can track it down).

  • ScottyXTUK #9 3 years ago

    So better than Halo then?

  • systems #10 3 years ago

    Note that it comes with the patch but it isn't patched. You have to run that from the supplied folder. Oh, and you can't do the "Huge" install unless you edit DOSbox to have a larger image size ("-freesize 1000" is enough).

    Some useful files and fixes here:
    http://www. uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Files

  • Darren #11 3 years ago

    I had to giggle when I saw the screenshots for this game yesterday... they looked like ones taken from a Nintendo DS or a iPhone game! Just shows how much technology has progressed really since 1996.

  • systems #12 3 years ago

    Darren - it looked old even when it came out. But it has depth.

    The criticisms made them tart it up for Morrowind, but it was simplified a lot. They tarted it even more for Oblivion but it was even more shallow. Daggerfall with Fallout 3 graphics would be fantastic but sales would be poor as it's quite intimidating.

  • amylian #13 3 years ago

    I think I will pass...

  • Evolution #14 3 years ago

    More Twitter-esque reviews from Ellie!

  • dominalien #15 3 years ago

    I remember I couldn't play this game for more than a couple of days at a time - I got bored and annoyed. Then I had to take a week long break and then could resume play. Had to cheat my way through the final dungeon - infinite flying, I think.

    Any Ultima will be miles better than this, but it's still a great game!

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #16 3 years ago

    Wow, look at the tech specs for Arena

    Minimum system requirements:
    386/25 MHZ, DOS 5.0, 4MB RAM, 25MB HD Space, VGA graphics card

    I remember playing a demo of that on my 486 back in the day. It ran like shit.

  • curtlikesmeat #17 3 years ago

    I'd rather celebrate the 15th anniversary or whatever by hearing the announcement of Elder Scrolls V.

  • TriggerHippie #18 3 years ago

    Wonder if the bug that has you falling through the floor in dungeons all the time is still there! Great game though and the reason I bought a gaming pc in the first place. Well, I say gaming. Just had a voodoo gfx card in it :p
    Edited by 1 at 10/07/09 @ 13:27

  • Ranger101 #19 3 years ago

    "Wonder if the bug that has you falling through the floor in dungeons all the time is still there! Great game though and the reason I bought a gaming pc in the first place. Well, I say gaming. Just had a voodoo gfx card in it :p "

    Voodoo gfx card was overkill for Arena - it was a software engine afterall! Weaker than Doom as I recall.

    Was the first game where you could swing the sword with your mouse 'realistically' as far as I can remember too.

  • kangarootoo #20 3 years ago

    "Was the first game where you could swing the sword with your mouse 'realistically' as far as I can remember too."

    Die by the Sword was King in that respect. Another nugget of gaming greatness (though not as old as Daggerfall I guess). DbtS would let you chop off an enemies sword arm (which it was still holding the enemy's sword), then pick it up and hit other enemies with this 8 foot appendage of arm still holding sword.

  • br00talz #21 3 years ago

    Brilliant review!

  • bad09 #22 3 years ago

    "Full of bugs. Looks like it was made in 1996. You can be a werewolf though. Also it has tits. 10/10."

    Ellie, best EG review ever. Makes me want to buy it even though it's free! Might have a look only ever played Oblivion.

    Have to agree with the_dudefather one this one "There needs to be more werewolf games"

    I watched the end of American Werewolf In London the other night and saw a game right there! Someone do one go on...

    / howls at the moon

  • Sharzam #23 3 years ago

    Nice review ellie

  • Spekingur #24 3 years ago

    Wait, hasn't this been a free download for some time now?
    I distinctly remember downloading an Elderscrolls game maybe a year or two ago from Bethesda's site.

  • clockworkzombie #25 3 years ago

    @Spekingur
    That will be Arena I am guessing.

  • Spekingur #26 3 years ago

    Yes, it might have been Arena.

  • Demiath #27 3 years ago

    Not the best game ever or anything, but at least it's got better gameplay than Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3. Unfortunalety all Bethesda games - no matter how new or old they are - have the same basic faults; generic game worlds, quantity over quality and a character development system that is fundamentally broken in one way or the other.

    Bethesda...Bethesda never changes.

  • VMerken #28 3 years ago

    Never said no to a free oldie...

  • trooperdx3117 #29 3 years ago

    There is definitely no denying that werewolves make it 187% more awesome