Battlespire Easter Egg Revealed: Julian LeFay Papers Unlock 29-Year-Old Secret

A nearly three-decade mystery in Elder Scrolls history has been solved: a 29-year-old Easter egg in An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire can now be reliably triggered thanks to material from the Julian LeFay collection donated to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. Battlespire, developed by a Bethesda team led by Julian LeFay and released for MS-DOS in 1997, has long been a niche entry in the Elder Scrolls family. The discovery was documented by Andrew Borman, director of Digital Preservation at the Strong Museum, who shared details in a short video and subsequent reporting. What the archive revealed Borman explained that members of the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages Wiki had previously documented an in-game Easter egg: an image of the Battlespire development team accompanied by two text strings. One string read, "Greetings from the Elder Scrolls team," and the other displayed "Battlespire rules" followed by the developers' first names. Until now, the community did not know the precise input required to make the sequence appear during gameplay. According to Borman, the answer was uncovered in the Julian LeFay papers: to display the image and messages, start a Battlespire game, hold down the number 1 key and type the word "Spire". The image and the two messages will appear while the button is held; releasing the key causes the display to disappear, so players must keep the key depressed until finished. Archive contents and preservation work Borman described the donation as primarily consisting of LeFay’s game work, including his post-Bethesda contributions such as work on Skullgirls, and historically significant Dungeons & Dragons campaign notes that influenced early Elder Scrolls development. He noted that the D&D notes are particularly notable for setting early campaigns on locations like the Summerset Isles and featuring characters such as Haymon Camoran. The collection also includes a Kurzweil K2000 digital synthesizer from the early 1990s and photographs of LeFay, which the museum sees as important for representing both the creator and the person. Access and next steps The Strong Museum says the Julian LeFay collection should be available for researchers in the near future, though digital files will take longer to curate because they may contain personal information. Off-site access is constrained by copyright, but portions of the material are already accessible via the Imperial Library. The Battlespire Easter egg reveal adds a concrete, verifiable detail to the game’s legacy: Battlespire (1997) and the later Redguard (1998) remain distinct chapters in the broader Elder Scrolls story, and the LeFay materials now preserved at the Strong will help historians and fans study that history in greater depth.