This ridiculous deep cut mod adds guns from Bethesda's forgotten Terminator FPS to the biggest (and most frustrating) Elder Scrolls game

News
By published

The hottest guns of 1995 in an absolutely impenetrable RPG from '96.

aiming a rocket launcher at a Daggerfall enemy in a dungeon room
(Image credit: Bethesda, Micky D)

When I'm going for mods in my games, I usually opt for bug fixes, convenience tweaks, and the like, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't love a good old fashioned shitpost. Case in point: this mod that adds futuristic firearms to 1996's The Elder Scrolls Chapter 2: Daggerfall, here aptly demonstrated by Elder Scrolls YouTuber, Micky D.

Daggerfall's a game for a grognard's grognard, no two ways about it. It's got the biggest map of any Elder Scrolls by an order of magnitude, but it's largely empty. Daggerfall has the most skills, but if they aren't borked, they're nonfunctional (yeah I'm a Thaumaturgy and Centaurian language main). It's a key part of Bethesda's history, but God damn is it hard to come back to. Thankfully, the Daggerfall Unity source port is here to smooth out running the game on modern hardware, as well as introduce as many (or as few) modern niceties as suit your fancy. The port also inspired an expansive modding scene.

Enter Future Shock Weapons by spamtrooper on NexusMods. Spamtrooper's project not only upholds the sacred tradition of adding incongruous AKs and ACOGs to Bethesda's fantasy and retro-futurist worlds, but also celebrates one of the studio's lesser-known games. In-between Arena and Daggerfall, Bethesda released The Terminator: Future Shock, a Doom clone-era FPS set in the world of James Cameron's post-apocalypse. These days you can't even get Future Shock on GOG, but it does live on as abandonware on sites like Archive.org (and you'll need its assets for spamtrooper's mod to work).

As for the mod itself, well, it's a bunch of guns in an Elder Scrolls game, so it's funny as hell. "Ten(!) new, very unfitting and un-lore-friendly weapons have been added," spamtrooper boasts in the mod's description.

The guns have infinite ammo but limited durability, and amusingly rely on your archery skill to land hits⁠—Daggerfall was peak "action RPGs should be the worst of both worlds between action and RPGs," so the aiming's handled entirely under the hood with skill checks and dice rolls.

If you want to try Future Shock Weapons (or just play Daggerfall like God intended), you're going to want to download the game for free from Bethesda's website and get the latest version of the Daggerfall Unity source port. Happy adventuring, and try not to get stuck in any world geometry while you're at it.

Ted Litchfield
Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch.