My favourite Elder Scrolls YouTuber returned after 2 years, and it’s made me fall in love with ridiculous challenge runs all over again

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Online connections can sometimes feel surprisingly intimate, don’t they? On my Steam friends list, there are quite a few individuals who seemingly vanished without a trace. One individual hasn’t been seen for a year, while another has been absent for an astonishing 3646 days. If these were real-life acquaintances, I would be compelled to report their disappearance to the authorities. However, the barrier of a computer screen makes it so that those individuals I once interacted with daily are now nowhere to be found. I sincerely hope they reappear.

However, such incidents occur beyond the boundaries of my Steam friends circle as well. Two years back, YouTube personality and Bethesda jokester Mickey D uploaded a Fallout video and mysteriously disappeared, resurfacing only a few days ago to cheer for the Oblivion remaster and then posting an unexpected new video: Is It Possible to Play Daggerfall Without Ever Leaving Daggerfall?

The basic idea goes like this: Start by playing The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, dash out of the initial dungeon, traverse the game’s vast map, which is as large as Great Britain itself, to reach Daggerfall City, and then confine yourself within it without ever leaving. The objective is to accumulate a million gold coins, enough to purchase the most expensive property in town, all while remaining indoors. This task can be quite challenging. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go through it myself, but rather, I enjoyed a humorous video about someone else doing so instead.

Mickey finally completed his joyful mission, but found himself confined within the attic of his newly acquired dwelling due to a mysterious staircase glitch, which seemed almost like a divine sign.

However, this journey led me to rediscover old Elder Scrolls challenge videos I hadn’t considered in years. Videos featuring players attempting the opening segment of Morrowind blindfolded, or navigating without walking, or even attempting to slay a god at level 1.

I have a strong affection for this material, despite it being outside my usual activities (I might make an exception for content creation). It seems to serve as a sort of tough test: reshaping a game into uncharted territories and observing if it remains robust, all while discovering hidden traits within it that may have gone unnoticed previously.

For example, if you’re familiar with the initial level of Morrowind, you can navigate your way out even without sight by focusing on where the directional sound clues originate (though, almost. The character in question eventually had to jot down each necessary keypress one by one, but the idea remains valid).

These timeless Elder Scrolls games showcase an impressive degree of adaptability, along with a unique charm that comes from their seemingly flawed design. Even before delving into user-created mods, such as transforming every character in the game into zombies, the base game offers unconventional possibilities.

For instance, you’re not supposed to be able to slay a deity at level 1 or accumulate an immense fortune within a single town in a map roughly equivalent to Britain. However, the mechanics of these games are so fluid, so unusual, and with minimal constraints that they allow for such unorthodox feats.

As a devoted player, I often find myself marveling at how wiser creators might have avoided including a single-hit-kill arrow or allowing permanent elimination of crucial characters in the main storyline. Yet, their youthful exuberance apparently led to such decisions, resulting in an intriguing layer of complex challenges that were never originally intended. These unexpected quirks continue to baffle players and add a unique charm to the game, even after all these years. I can’t help but appreciate those imperfections.

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2025-04-26 15:02