It took nearly a decade of work, but Daggerfall Unity—the best version of Bethesda’s biggest RPG—finally crossed the finish line into a full 1.0 release in January. With that Herculean task complete, creator Gavin Clayton is moving on to a new project: Making a Daggerfall-style game of his own.
“I’ve already started working on a new game, but it’s going to be something of mine this time,” Clayton said in an interview with DualShockers. “I do genuinely love that old style of game. The thing I’m building is in the same vein. You’re talking big world, complex systems, mod support, that’s all of the stuff I want to explore, and I want to take that experience of Daggerfall Unity and put it in the new game.”
Clayton said he’s wanted to make games since he was very young, but the opportunities were very limited back in the 1980s and ’90s, and so he went into IT instead because it was “sensible and down to Earth,” and something he could make a proper living from.
Now, though, Clayton is stepping back from his IT services business so he can work on the new project full time. He’s also moving away from Unity in favor of his own game engine, one he actually started working on before Daggerfall Unity, which he’s “revived … to be a little more modern.” The world and story of the new game are rooted in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign he ran for friends back in the 1990s, although he said the story will be “optional,” as he prefers games where players “can find their own stories.”
All of that is still very far off, though. Clayton said on Twitter that he’s “still really early in tech stage” and isn’t ready to make any sort of formal announcement, and that his plan is to “start at a smaller scale and build up as I find my feet.”
As for the future of Daggerfall Unity, it’s finished but it’s not done: Clayton said the game is transitioning to a “community-led project” with the help of contributor kaboissonneault. “Kab is one of the core contributors to DFU and highly active in its mod scene and community,” Clayton tweeted. “Kab is also looking for people to help review and test PRs on git, so get in touch with him if that’s something you have the experience and can help with. Kab will be leading the charge to 1.1 release of DFU. There are more bugfixes and mod features coming in the near future.”