Daggerfall online mod DFO Online faces backlash over paid Patreon tiers
DFO Online is free, but its developer offers paid Patreon memberships with in-game perks, including a tier priced at 15,000 dollars a month.
An unofficial project that adds online play to The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall has drawn criticism on social media over the way it collects donations, according to Automaton Media. The project, DFO Online, is offered for free, but its developer runs paid Patreon membership tiers starting at 5 dollars a month.
The tiers include in-game perks such as titles, and one tier is listed at 15,000 dollars a month. As of the article's writing, the Patreon page has 85 paid members and brings in about 1,253 dollars a month in support. The page was opened on September 24, and the situation became widely known through user reports in early October.
The developer, Lattymoy, says everything released will be free to everyone regardless of support, and that donations go toward development time and tools. According to the developer, most commits in the project's GitHub repository are attributed to Claude.
DFO Online launched in August 2026 as a derivative of Daggerfall Unity, the unofficial Unity remake of the 1996 MS-DOS game. On October 14, the project dropped its goal of matching Daggerfall Unity one-to-one and said it would proceed as its own project.
Monetization questions around fan projects
Daggerfall Unity developer Gavin Clayton has said that project has done no monetization, including ads or donations. The original game has been distributed free since 2009 for the series' 15th anniversary, and Steam and GOG.com versions bundling DOSBox followed in 2022. Bethesda Softworks later released an update supporting Daggerfall Unity for the Steam version.
Unofficial fan projects have been removed before. In April 2026, the unofficial Pokémon YouTube channel PokéNational was taken down after a complaint from Nintendo of America, and an unofficial Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod was removed following a DMCA request from CD PROJEKT RED.
Quick answers
Is DFO Online free?
Yes. The developer says everything released will be free to everyone regardless of support, though paid Patreon tiers offer in-game perks such as titles.
How much does DFO Online's Patreon raise?
As of the article's writing, the Patreon page has 85 paid members and gathers about 1,253 dollars a month, with tiers starting at 5 dollars a month.
What is DFO Online based on?
It launched in August 2026 as a derivative of Daggerfall Unity, the unofficial Unity remake of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall.