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Polygon: 20 years ago, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind changed everything

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Morrowind was hardly my first video game, but it was my first true love. When I was desperate for meaning, and life was at its most unsalted saltine, this was a Flavor Blasted Goldfish. I played games before, but this was more like an alternative to reality. It was open beyond comprehension long before the ubiquity of open worlds. My small, mundane existence was supplanted by possibility, mystery, and horror in equal measure. This game fundamentally altered the standard by which subsequent open-world RPGs would be judged. It changed everything.

I didn’t have friends in school, but the denizens of Vvardenfell weren’t concerned with my lack of social standing. They sought only to criticize my outlander status, or for running around in the nude, or for keeping them from the important work of meandering around a 5-foot radius and staring blankly into the distance. The game’s voice acting was pretty limited as well, with dialogue delivered mainly via text boxes. This came with the fun benefit of allowing me to assign any tone I saw fit to an NPC’s rambling — I often took undue offense and murdered many innocent townspeople, screwing myself out of future quest lines in the process.

That was one of the many wonders of Morrowind: You could fuck yourself in ways that defied imagination. In fact, Morrowind offered a game-breaking degree of freedom. Some modern games offer branching decision trees under the veil of agency, but end up funneling everyone toward the same conclusion regardless. But in Morrowind, there were no such gimmicks. In fact, there was sometimes no fail state at all. There wasn’t a Game Over screen after you killed a shady moon-sugar addict and “severed the thread of prophecy.” You could play for tens of hours before realizing the implications of dropping a key item somewhere in a sewer. The creators at Bethesda did not think to protect us from ourselves. Playing Morrowind, I was Colonel Kurtz’s snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor.

Subverting your better judgment didn’t always lead to failure, though. In some cases it led to further adventures. If one was feeling particularly ballsy, they could kill the God-King Vivec and tumble headfirst down a rabbit hole of an entirely alternate main-quest path. This information was not telegraphed to the player at the outset. Instead, it was a reward that only those with hubris enough to kill a god would be privy to. The absence of explicit direction was a fundamental aspect of Morrowind’s genius design that has only been rivaled in recent years by Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring. As in those games, new quests in Morrowind were found organically — through conversation and action rather than running toward the nearest map icon.

Curiosity, not waypoints, fueled exploration on the island of Vvardenfell. Morrowind came before we were all indoctrinated into the cult of Quality of Life. Convenience can temper frustration, yes, but it can also reduce an otherwise rich experience into something mindless. Morrowind preserved the magic by stubbornly refusing to spoon-feed its players. Navigation was aided by the physical map, the often ambiguous (and sometimes straight-up incorrect) directions shared by quest givers, and the player’s own questionable instinct. Fast-travel options were available but limited to specific locations. And you were on your feet most of the time, so the island felt huge — despite the game’s god-awful draw distance.

With so much to explore and discover, stumbling into the unexpected came to be expected. After chatting with a tax collector about sweet roll-related issues, you could proceed outside the village bounds of Seyda Neen and be greeted with a loud shriek. It was a wizard falling from the air to his death. On his corpse was a journal, outlining the hubris which resulted in the broken corpse before you. Along with a spell that fortified acrobatics to a dangerous degree, Tarhiel’s final moments lent a pervasive sense of awe that colored the entire journey moving forward. It seemed like anything could happen, untethered from concrete quests and assignments, as long as you were in the right place at the right time. The map was brimming with possibility.

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Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Definitely a game that blew my mind when it came out and was doing things no other game had up to that point. I do feel the quality of content was front-loaded though.
 
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ManaByte

Member
Reading that pretentious first paragraph:
Season 5 Episode 1 Eye Roll GIF by Blindspot
 

Laptop1991

Member
It definitely was an important game and milestone for Bethesda, but it was Oblivion not Morrowind that made me a TES Fan. although to be fair i didn't play Morrowind until Jan 2006, 4 years after it was released.
 
Duping items and drinking 100 speed elixers changed everything. I've never crossed such a large 3d open world, so fast before or since. Also jumping 10 miles in to the sky was pretty funny.
 

rofif

Banned
I am so old. I was playing this for months when I was 13.
I knew where the best gear was. Treasure rooms, which npc has the keys, where are buyers with cash to sell the stolen goods and so on. I could start the game, go to Few places, collect my gear and train to level 40.
The last game with such freedom. Frankly, Elden ring reminds me of it
 
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MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
Changed as in being an easier less complicated dagger fall then ok.🤷‍♂️

While I agree that a lot of cool features only present in Daggerfall were lost, Morrowind is an overral better game.

For anyone wanting to replay (or play for the first time), check this out:



 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Curiosity, not waypoints, fueled exploration on the island of Vvardenfell. Morrowind came before we were all indoctrinated into the cult of Quality of Life. Convenience can temper frustration, yes, but it can also reduce an otherwise rich experience into something mindless. Morrowind preserved the magic by stubbornly refusing to spoon-feed its players. Navigation was aided by the physical map, the often ambiguous (and sometimes straight-up incorrect) directions shared by quest givers, and the player’s own questionable instinct.
Happy Daniel Bryan GIF by WWE
Jason Sudeikis Yes GIF by Apple TV
 
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Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
While I agree that a lot of cool features only present in Daggerfall were lost, Morrowind is an overral better game.

For anyone wanting to replay (or play for the first time), check this out:




Nice, curious to try it out on my personal MBP (macOS support too, so I do not need to fiddle with an ARM version of Windows).
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I really got into the franchise with Oblivion, tried a few times to get back to Morrowind but just couldn't get into it.

I like my RPGs easy and accessible :D
 
I’ve tried so many times to finish Morrowind. It has fantastic atmopshere, but try as I may I just can’t get into the combat. I understand the combat’s dice roll/weapon specialization system, but it just isn’t fun regardless. Oblivion and Skyrim’s combat systems aren’t much better, but at last they’re more intuitive.

I’ve played it on Xbox (the fantastic 60fps emulation on Xbone/SX), and I have the GOG version heavily modded on my laptop. I think it’s one of the few games that could benefit from an official remake, but I’m not sure if current Bethesda could streamline the combat without being tempted to also streamline everything else (like quest design and Magic customization).

Also it has the best Argonian and Khajiit designs. I really like how they each look more lizard like and feline like respectively and I always use mods in Skyrim that give the Argonians Lizard legs and Khajiit paw-like feet.

It’s a really cool game, but the combat just makes it drag on for me and I’ve never even finished the main quest.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Those first 2 hours of Morrowind were just magical. Felt like it was limitless. Considering there was next to nothing like it on the market. It had some of the best rain/water effects too at the time.

Morrowind was magical because it didn't really hold your hand and you could easily break the game if you felt like messing around with creating your own spells/summons.

I'd roll around with two permanent golden saints as my body guards.

I have many fond memories of the game and my buddy and I still talk about it. SkyWind when?
 
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Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
Bumping this because between Starfield being exclusive and BG3 being delayed on Mac I am installing OpenMW and starting Morrowind again.
Definitely the best ES game by far. Still remember my experience 20 years later.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
One of my favorites of that generation. First Bethesda game I had played, hell, first RPG of that generation that I really spent any time with. I remember having no clue about it and then watching an episode of X-Play that talked about how incredible the water looked and I had to play it. I was blown away at the time, it was one of the most immersive experiences I had ever played up to that point.

I've actually been jonesing to play through again co-op with my wife if I can get her to give it a shot. Been watching a lot of this guys' channel lately and the itch is getting stronger....



edit:

Lol, realized I had already posted in this thread over a year ago. At least what I posted this time only added to what I had written before.
 
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Hudo

Member
Certainly the best written game Bethesda have ever put out. And it is highly ironic that it was written by Kirkbride as he was fucking high. It was also a better designed game imho (except for maybe the combat). I mean, it's just fucking fun to "game the system" (it's working as intended imho) by, for example, jumping all the time to get your athleticism skill up and then, together with the power of some potions, to jump from one end of the map to the other like a fucking demigod. Now THAT is awesome RPG progression.
 
I always liked gaining tons of mercantile skill in seyda neen by buying and selling the limeware platter to the first merchant, and then dying to a mudcrab because I didn't choose a combat skill
 

ManaByte

Member
Bumping this because between Starfield being exclusive and BG3 being delayed on Mac I am installing OpenMW and starting Morrowind again.
Definitely the best ES game by far. Still remember my experience 20 years later.

You could play Starfield on a Mac via streaming.
 

Maddux4164

Member
I was 16 when it came out. Had a PC, but wasn’t powerful enough. But it released on Xbox

This game became my life. Infatuated by the freedom. Never has a game let me absolutely do anything I want.

MOST gamers forget the manual and the opening page it stated (yes… games had manuals) had never heard of a game like this. This was a revolutionary title
KaXRjVH.jpg
 

Sojiro

Member
My current BGS ranking:

1) Starfield
2) Morrowind
3) Fallout 3
4) Oblivion
5) Skyrim

Never played Fallout 4.
Can't comment on starfield as I haven't played it, but I am definitely in the camp of Bethesda should have focused on like 30 crafted worlds instead of a shit load of procedurally generated ones, all with limited exploration. I would probably have New Vegas as 2, with fallout 3 as third with the Bethesda games. I haven't played the earlier TES games to comment on them either.
 

L*][*N*K

Banned
Morrowind was the perfect thing at the perfect time. It disemboweled my sad goth girl identity and divided my life into two halves: one defined by insecurity and apathy, and another touched by the (Daedric) Face of God.
Sick Paramount Network GIF by Yellowstone
 

digdug2

Member
And can ya believe it, Starfield looks like it is running on the same engine!
 
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