Sadly, former Bethesda developer Julian LeFay passed away a couple days ago at 59 years old after a battle with cancer. He was one of the really old-school guys, working on Arena, Daggerfall, and Battlespire before leaving the company in 1998. Julian is immortalized as the namesake of the god Julianos.

Although I prefer the "modern" direction of The Elder Scrolls from Redguard/Morrowind onward, which was necessary for its survival, the franchise wouldn't be where it is today without Julian. Daggerfall remains one of the most fascinating pieces of media to me. TES is my favorite franchise and it's given me countless hours of joy and awe. I'm not sure that would've been possible if Julian LeFay wasn't there in the beginning. He is called "the Father of The Elder Scrolls," after all.

RIP to the legend.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Julian_LeFay

https://www.ign.com/articles/julian-lefay-f...t-due-to-cancer

https://x.com/BethesdaStudios/status/1948047731429159330

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/o...has-passed-away

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/07/juli...sed-away-at-59/

This is very sad news. Daggerfall is one my top five of my favorite games and I was looking forward to playing his latest OnceLost Games project, The Wayward Realms. My deepest sympathies go out to his family.

Fortunately, the project is still full speed ahead. OLG talked about how they got as much info from him as they could about what he envisioned for the game before he passed and he'll be honored in some way in the full release.