GOG has delisted its controversial "GOG Cut" of Daggerfall Unity – the fan-made remaster of the second Elder Scrolls game – as it says it "no longer fulfills its purpose of providing a hassle-free modded experience."
Daggerfall Unity's 1.0 launch arrived in late 2023 after nine years of development, but the GOG Cut was available before this, offering the game alongside a whole bunch of pre-installed mods, making for a package that, as per the remaster devs themselves, is "buggy, slow, and completely changes how the game looks and plays." The actual Daggerfall Unity team wasn't involved with the GOG Cut. Back in 2023 – at which point they said it was already "almost two years out of date," and they "in no way recommend it to play Daggerfall Unity" – the team offered players a step-by-step guide on how to migrate over to their recommended version if need be.
Those concerns about the GOG Cut being out of date have now resurfaced as the storefront confirms the decision to delist it altogether has been made since "the pack is outdated and no longer fulfills its purpose of providing a hassle-free modded experience to the game." It vanished from the store earlier today, so if you didn't already have it, you've missed your chance – it'll stay in the library of anyone who already owned it, though.
- 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"
- Modder leading 13-year effort to remake Oblivion in Skyrim isn't worried about an official remake: "The fact Skyblivion is nearly in a releasable state is a miracle"
The good news is that GOG says it's "working on a solution that will allow us to publish and maintain such projects better in the future, so stay tuned!" With that in mind, it'll hopefully be able to avoid similar situations going forward where project creators are actively discouraging players from downloading the GOG version. For now, the Daggerfall Unity version without all those extra mods is still out there to be downloaded and played – Elder Scrolls co-creator Ted Peterson even spoke about it recently, saying that it's "been the best" and "I really appreciate it."
