Elder Scrolls co-creator is "super-grateful" for fan remakes, but says their existence is bittersweet: Daggerfall might have been "flaky and weird," but "no one had to recreate Casablanca"

gamesradar.com:

The Elder Scrolls games have left a long-lasting legacy on the industry, but fans aren't content to just keep them as relics of the past – they want to remake them, and the series co-creator has mixed feelings about that.

Speaking to VideoGamer, Elder Scrolls co-creator Ted Peterson comments on fan project Daggerfall Unity, a remaster that brings the almost 30-year-old game a fresh coat of paint. 

"Oh my god, Daggerfall Unity has been the best," Peterson says. "It's funny. Like, it's great, obviously. I really appreciate it. It's funny because no one had to recreate Casablanca to say, 'Oh my god, look at this movie from 70 years ago.' You just go like, 'Yeah, it was of the era and the dialogue is great, and the chemistry is great,' and nobody says, 'It’s fine for the era.'"

In fairness, since the dawn of VHS, it's been pretty easy to watch old movies like Casablanca. In contrast, Peterson acknowledges it was trickier for gamers to get their hands on Daggerfall before the Unity fan project.

"It's bizarre… I mean no one could play Daggerfall for ten years," Peterson explains. "Maybe even longer. They could do DOSBox, but it would be flaky and weird. I mean, it totally reinvigorated people's interest and people saying, 'Hey, this was actually a decent game!'"

With old films, it can sometimes be hard to find an original scan and we're often left with weird remasters that change a lot of the color and lighting – we face similar issues with games – but it's still fairly easy to watch them on a DVD or VHS. With old games, many simply don't run as they should unless you have the exact right hardware, so it's no wonder fans spend time on their own remake. 

Another issue is many games do get official remakes, but these can often be terrible. Just consider how badly received the GTA Definitive Edition remaster was. Even so, Take-Two has been issuing takedowns on fan projects trying to bring the games to a more modern audience.

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