Elder Scrolls creator Ted Peterson is “glad that people are wanting to break away from” watered-down RPGs as he works on an epic Daggerfall successor

Veteran RPG developer Ted Peterson is working on a new RPG designed to be the true spiritual successor to The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. After praising fans for their work on bringing Daggerfall back to life with recent remake projects, Peterson sat down with VideoGamer to discuss the creation of his new game.

In an interview on the VideoGamer Podcast—releasing on February 1st—Peterson discussed the creation of his upcoming spritual successor The Wayward Realms. Five years into development, the new RPG aims to use the strengths of past Elder Scrolls games and modern technology to create a vast, expansive game with near-limitless player choice.

Elder Scrolls creator doesn’t like “small” RPGs

Speaking in the podcast interview, Peterson explained that he grew tired of RPGs with sweeping worlds that still had linear storylines. Previously Daggerfall has a number of ways of completing quests which would result in different endings, a feature that has been forgotten in modern Elder Scrolls games and explained away in what the creator deems “very silly” lore.

“I can say for myself, but I can’t speak for other people, I don’t like how linear and small, small certainly for the game world and the sandbox I’m playing in, [RPGs can feel],” Peterson explained. “How linear the storyline is, how forced you are into it. I was hoping that we were gonna change that and make the game more fun for someone like me who wants to play the game in different ways.”

With the success of massive RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 that actually offer player choice again, Peterson is excited to release his game to an audience that does want more again. After a rough period of RPGs where player choice and ingenuity were watered down, there’s now a hunger for more branching paths and player freedom.

“For me, I’ll always go on the side of freedom.”

ELDER SCROLLS CO-CREATOR TED PETERSON

“I’m glad that people are wanting to break away from that,” Peterson explained. “I’ve seen games that have attempted it and were trying to break down the fence completely. For me, I’ll always go on the side of freedom.”

For The Wayward Realms, Peterson explained that the majority of meetings for the upcoming game are based around breaking open quests. If there’s a skill that a player can use, it should be able to alter the path of a quest, whether that’s a magic skill, lock-picking or even something like climbing.

“So much of our design discussions are, ‘Hey, how can you solve this quest with total, like, social talking to someone?’ And because you got the right skills you could do that. If you have an interesting story to tell but there are so many different ways to approach it, like… that’s the way to go!”

The Wayward Realms is currently in development for PC, and the game’s crowdfunding page is still live for gamers who wish to support the upcoming title. While there’s no concrete release date at the time of writing, the project is very promising and fans of early Elder Scrolls have something special to look forward to.