FOSSPicks

XLEngine

This is a project that's definitely in an early development stage and, at the time of writing, can't quite play the games it's hoping to support. But there's lots of potential, and the small team behind it are working hard. XLEngine is a modern game engine that plays a few specific yet classic old games. In particular, it could play Daggerfall and Dark Forces, which are two ancient games that can always be replated for new fun and entertainment. The game engine has been around for a while, but the source code was closed. The code has recently been released in an unknown state of repair. While it builds and plays its two most famous games, many things remain broken. However, it is making rapid progress, and the fact that the Linux version builds and even runs when previously it didn't is a strong indication of the project's potential.

It's worth all this development because these games are such classics and won't easily run on modern hardware. DOSBox will work, but using XLEngine allows you to run an old game using modern technology such as OpenGL, which could mean bringing the game to platforms like the Raspberry Pi, a platform that is completely different from the original old x86 of those early PCs. Daggerfall is a wonderful open world RPG game that still has a lot to offer, as shown by the continued popularity of the nearly decade old Skyrim recently released for the Nintendo Switch and SteamVR virtual reality platform (sadly not for Linux, though). Daggerfall is also a free download, so there's nothing to lose by trying it if you haven't yet and tracking the development of this promising game engine.

Project Website

https://github.com/Mindwerks/XLEngine

You may now be able to play Bethesda's classic Skyrim in virtual reality, but its ancient Daggerfall is difficult to beat on immersion.

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