If you've ever attempted to play The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, you'll know that it doesn't exactly get off to the easiest of starts.
Dumped into the tutorial dungeon, it's not uncommon for players to round the first set of corners before getting demolished by an Imp for simply having the wrong kind of weapon equipped. Because of this, there has been no shortage of posts over the years complaining about the difficulty of the game's opening hours and begging other fans of the series for advice on how to reach the end of the dungeon and make their way out into Tamriel's expansive open world, without just repeatedly throwing themselves at the problem and expecting different results. Tips such as getting the Ebony Dagger during the initial character creation.
As you may be aware, earlier this week, Time Extension spoke to Bruce Nesmith, one of the original designers on Daggerfall, about his career in games, and during the conversation, he made a rather interesting confession.
Answering a question about his role on the project, he revealed that he was responsible for building the initial dungeon that had given so many players problems, and stated he's aware it may have made some players want to tear their eyeballs out.
"I came on mid-project, and my role was to work on quests and build dungeons. So that's what I did. For people who really can get in a wayback machine, that initial dungeon, the very first one you start the game in, that was mine. So if you hated that and wanted to tear your eyeballs out, that's my fault."
Speaking about the decision to start the game in a dungeon, he states it wasn't his idea, but "would probably have been the call of the principal designers, Julian LeFay and Ted Peterson, but nevertheless, he agreed with the concept, believing it was an essential to not only ensure players took the time to learn the mechanics, but that the character they built was viable:
"Most video games have a starter area that teaches the player how to play. It's a very rare game that just throws you into the open world, because the developer needs to make sure you understand how to do combat, how to use all the special systems — whether it's sneaking, climbing, jumping, or whatever it is. They also need to make sure that the fights you have are definitely winnable, particularly with the characters you have created. So that's essentially what we were trying to do with Daggerfall. Did we do it well? I don't know if you could argue that.
But by the time Todd Howard took over for Morrowind, which I was not at Bethesda for, I think he decided to run with the trope of you always start as some kind of prisoner, because it always ensured the same thing."
Did you struggle with Daggerfall's tutorial dungeon? How do you rate it against the opening of other games in the series? Let us know in the comments!