Ostensibly, C:\ArsGames is to some extent about actually driving a few game purchases, but in reality it's mostly an excuse for me and my colleagues to wax nostalgic about the games that were formative for us. Case in point: This entry in our ongoing series with GOG is about a game that's completely free. I think Ars can withstand this tiny revenue shortfall for the sake of peak nostalgia!

There are a couple of reasons I chose The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall this time around: its co-creator, Julian LeFay, recently passed away, so it seemed timely. Also, it was one of the defining games of my youth—one I have continued to revisit now and then.

But it's also interesting because of where its developer, Bethesda—a studio people both love and hate—is at today. Going back to Daggerfall, we find a game that shows off so much of what we've lost from the bygone era of '90s PC gaming, but also one that makes it abundantly clear why the industry left those sensibilities behind.

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Julian LeFay, the man often credited as "the father of The Elder Scrolls," has died at the age of 59, his creative partners announced this week.

"It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that we inform our community of the passing of Julian LeFay, our beloved Technical Director and co-founder of Once Lost Games," his colleagues wrote in a Bluesky post.

LeFay spent most of the 1990s at Bethesda Softworks, culminating in his work on The Elder Scrolls series into the late '90s.

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