As of this video’s posting, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is fifteen years old.
Released on May 1st, 2002, Morrowind is still considered by many to be the favorite of the
series, myself included.
Although for me, I didn’t actually play the game until a couple years after it launched,
and it was with this Game of the Year Edition that I first experienced the land of dark
elves and silt striders.
And it's a nice enough box I suppose, but I much prefer the massive collector’s edition,
clad in matte black and embossed glossy artwork.
Definitely a centerpiece of any PC game collection, but good luck finding a complete copy of this
for less than $200.
Inside this edition you not only get the game and construction set discs, along with the
standard manual and fold-out map poster, but there’s also the phenomenal soundtrack by
Jeremy Soule on CD.
In addition you get the 48-page Art of Morrowind book, which is a real treat if you want to
see more concept art than the in-game loading screens provide.
And finally there’s the two-and-a-half inch pewter Ordinator figurine.
But yeah, the typical small box North American release is pretty tame in comparison, but
at least it comes with the map and full-color manual, both of which I admired and analyzed
analyzed endlessly back when I first played this.
However, if you were in one of the European territories where Ubisoft distributed the
game, you might’ve had this fantastic bundle.
It has an inner package that slides out and unfolds, revealing more artwork, as well as
the manual, map, and CDs tucked inside in a way that’s much more visually appealing
than the ugly cardboard tray we got over here.
And of course, there were the two official expansion packs, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, which
I have thanks to a generous donation.
Thank you very much for that!
This content was included in the Game of the Year Edition, but they’re sweet little boxes
on their own, and they came packed with their own separate maps as well, a welcome thing
indeed for the cartographically inclined.
And finally, there’s the Xbox version, the only other platform Morrowind appeared on
outside the PC.
Despite its drawbacks due to hardware limitations, it was received rather well and
ended up being the fifteenth highest-selling game on the system.
And finally, there’s the Morrowind Prophecies, this one being the game of the year edition
which is a gigantic 416-page strategy guide by the venerable Peter Olafson.
Not a requirement in the days of online walkthroughs, but holy crap, the detail this thing goes
into is darned impressive.
Morrowind deserved it, too; this was a game with nearly a decade-long legacy in 2002,
with years of hype building up to it after Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, and Redguard
established the brand up to that point.
Crazy to think that it almost happened completely differently too, with Bethesda teasing it as far
back as 1997 with this note inside the box for Battlespire.
Yeah, a Morrowind in 1998 would’ve been quite a different beast indeed, but instead
they scrapped the XnGine used since Daggerfall and went with Gamebryo predecessor NetImmerse,
also used in games like Freedom Force and Prince of Persia 3D.
Whew, all right, are you still with me?
Good, because you’re about to have an eargasm courtesy ofJeremy Soule!
*Morrowind theme eargasm plays*
Hearing just the few opening notes of the Morrowind theme, or heck ANY of
the soundtrack to this game, fills me with all manner of joy and wonder and adventure
and just augh! This game is so awesome and we haven’t even gotten past
the main menu yet!
Once you do get past this menu and start a new game, you’re presented with a quote
and a creepy yet soothing voice whispering sweet ambiguities in you ear...
Disembodied voice: "Fear not, for I am watchful. You have been chosen."
Voice of Jiub: "Wake up! We're here."
"Why are you shaking? Are you okay? Wake up!"
Yeah, this is actually quite a departure from the preceding Elder Scrolls games in terms of introductions.
No hair metal, no cheesy FMV, no complicated stats screens.
Instead, in what would become a Bethesda game tradition, Morrowind starts you off as a blank
slate to determine your identity through the narrative, while also acting as a quick tutorial.
The setup is that you’re an anonymous prisoner who’s just landed on the isle of Vvardenfell
within the Tamriel territory of Morrowind.
You’re about to be released, but first you have to fill out the required paperwork, which
sets you up to perform all the classic CRPG character creation stuff.
Choose your sex, your appearance, and your race, some of which will have long-standing
consequences throughout the game due to skill bonuses, special abilities, and the people
of Morrowind’s individual biases.
You’ll also choose a class or create your own, always a lovely opportunity to completely
screw up your game before it even starts if you don’t know what you’re doing!
After this you’re given a set of final obligations to fulfill as an ex-con, which involves delivering
a package to a man in the town of Balmora.
And yeah, that is all you have to go on. You are on your own.
And wow, it does not seem like a decade and a half has passed!
Morrowind may not have the grandest opening act or the prettiest opening scenery, but
there’s still something special about stepping through that door for the first time and walking
out into the village of Seyda Neen.
It’s just you, some basic inventory, and a journal against the entire rest of world.
You have a map, but other than a few vague markings and territorial outlines
it's empty.
Furthermore, there are no quest markers or arrows pointing you in a certain direction,
it’s completely up to you as to what to do next and how to get there.
Heck, you don’t *have* to go anywhere, since every single village, fortress, town, and
city is packed full of stuff to do and NPCs to talk to.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when a CRPG throws you into the deep end from the beginning like this, but
in this case I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The volcanic, mushroomy world of Morrowind is downright enthralling to explore from the start
and the sense of freedom and self-motivated advancement is a continual pleasure
even after all these years!
Welllllll, for the most part.
I like to think I’m not completely blinded by nostalgia when it comes to Morrowind even
if it remains one of my favorite games.
But there are tiresome quirks and major aggravations all throughout its 60+ hour main storyline,
with plenty more if you continue onto the countless hours of side quests and expansion
pack territories.
And I'm not just talking about bugs and glitches of which there are quite a few still, but
a lot of it really is just how the game is designed.
Some of these issues I don’t find as bad as their reputation suggests,
namely the combat.
As with prior games in the series, the combat in Morrowind is based on percentages and stats;
so just because you see a visual representation of you swinging a sword into some dude's
face, it doesn’t mean you’ll actually hit them unless the invisible dice rolls in
your favor.
It also evolves the mouse cursor swiping of Arena and Daggerfall and meshes it with typical
first-person game controls.
So when combining your attack with movements and held-down keys, you’ll get different
animations and attacks.
The options menu lets you override this and always use the "best attack," which I typically
do because I’m lazy, and also because I don’t find it any more rewarding or beneficial
NOT to use it.
Naturally, players have debated the merits of this for years, but either way
you’re stuck with the same animations playing over the same dice rolls that lead to the
link between the player and the combat feeling loose at best.
I find that this is mostly a problem in the early hours of the game where you’re still
a 97-pound weakling, since once you level up past a certain point and boost those sweet
combat skills, the fighting becomes a whole lot more enjoyable.
Not exactly what I’d call excellent or anything, but a bit more satisfying at least.
And since the vast majority of Morrowind’s gameplay takes place after you’ve gotten
good, I genuinely don’t find the combat to be this ultimate deal-breaker.
Unless we’re talking about freaking cliff racers, because screw these guys.
They gang up on you, follow you around forever, and are harder to hit than seemingly anything
else, even with all the high-level combat skills you can find.
And speaking of skills, in Morrowind your skills are increased by using them rather than, say,
picking from a list of upgrades when you level up.
Instead, while leveling you increase your primary attributes and these in turn determine the maximum level
of their associated skills, but the skills themselves are upgraded by simply playing
the game.
A common exploit of this system is to run and jump absolutely everywhere, which will increase your
athletics and acrobatics skills pretty quickly.
And with as slow of a runner and weak of a jumper you are at the start, you absolutely
will want to take advantage of this just to make getting around in the game that much less of a slog.
There are also trainer NPCs dotted throughout the world, which is fine and dandy, but not
only is it an annoying string of menu options to go through each time, but the only thing standing
in your way of epic skills is money.
Talk about missing the point of a strict skill system where you only learn by doing, since
most of it can be ignored entirely by being rich.
And thankfully, getting rich is a ton of fun and is the entire point of the game, at least
as far as how *I* play.
It doesn’t matter what kind of grandiose plans I make for myself, or what kind of totally
new character I generate, I always end up becoming a sneaky, murderous kleptomaniac.
It’s just, dude, there’s so much shiny stuff just lying around, who can resist!
And if your character is good at talking to people on top of that, then a bit of flattery
and bribery is par for the course when fencing your stolen loot.
This stuff is seriously like, 90% of why I still go back to Morrowind, because the gameplay
loop of sneaking, stealing, and bartering is just hugely entertaining.
About the only thing bringing it down is the experience of bashing your head against the
UI trying to actually sell stuff and keep track of what you have.
This brings me to my next big gripe with Morrowind, the user interface.
Just, all of it.
You’ve got these windows you can drag around and resize, which is fine, but the actual
information contained within leaves a lot to be desired.
Not only is there a lack of really detailed sorting abilities,
but the same vague icons are often repeated for items with completely different attributes,
and the way they’re laid out here seems scatterbrained and an inefficient use of on-screen real estate.
Same goes for your quest-tracking journal, which was improved through the Tribunal expansion
to allow filtering by active quests. But even then it’s still only what I’d call a tolerable experience.
These chronologically-sorted pages make it a bit easy to get flustered trying to find an obscure
piece of information you received forever ago, making me wish for a search function
and maybe even a way to add your own notes in-game.
But by far the bigger pain when it comes to managing text is the speech and conversation
system, which is about as pleasant as a wet fart in an elevator.
To be clear, I’m referring to the interactive dialogue, not the short barks and phrases
NPCs speak when you move close by.
"KHAJIIT HAS NO WORDS FOR YOU."
In a step back from Redguard, Morrowind does not feature fully-voiced dialogue, which makes
sense seeing as this game is orders of magnitude larger.
But when combined with the awful text windows you have to navigate, conversations end up
being more overwhelming and annoying to navigate than ever.
There's tens of thousands of lines in-game, and I swear, it seems like a single NPC can
contain half of them at once!
In theory, I have no problem with copious dialogue, but when it’s a chore to deal with I just tune out.
And that’s unfortunate because there is a slew of captivating lore in Morrowind, but
hell if I’m gonna waste my time sludging through it with this bland wall of hyperlinks.
Compare this to the conversation system in Fallout as an example, where you have similar
amounts of dialogue, yet because of the way it’s divided up and presented it’s friendlier
to interact with and feels much more conversational.
But enough complaining for now; once you come to terms with Morrowind’s strangeness, its
sheer awesomeness shines through and it is something special indeed.
Whether you’re going through the main storyline or creating your own destiny being sidetracked
by wayward women, it seems like there’s always something new and enjoyable to experiment with.
A lot of this comes from the various guilds and organized groups you can pledge allegiance to.
Got trouble dealing with pent-up rage?
Join the Fighter’s Guild!
Have a penchant for magic and trapping souls?
Join the Mages Guild!
Can’t keep your hands off of anything, ever?
Join the Thieves Guild, if you can find them!
Tired of having BDSM dudes beating you up while you're trying to sleep?
Track down the Dark Brotherhood and be sure to bring your own whip.
And who can forget the various Great Houses, religions, and cults that you can join and
take advantage of.
Each one of these comes with their own set of rules, duties, advancement opportunities,
spells, potions, and skills to learn, and personally I find completing these questlines
to be far more intoxicating than the main story.
That’s not to say that the main story is boring or anything, far from it.
I won’t spoil it here, but lemme just say that once you find out what the disembodied voice
was droning on about in the beginning of the game, the journey you’ll take
to fulfill your destiny is quite the fantastical thing indeed.
But you know, good luck keeping focused when there are spells to mix, valuable items to
enchant, Dwemer artifacts to collect, and frozen barrows to raid.
You can even turn invisible, spawn monsters, walk on water, and fly away using levitation,
it’s just absurd the amount of stuff you can do and the combinations of cool
things you can come up with, with magic, and skills and all the items; I just love this stuff man!
This kind of open-ended, player-driven gameplay is happily reminiscent of classic tabletop
role-playing games, while remaining approachable and just challenging enough to keep you engaged
for hours on end.
Later Elder Scrolls games tend to be a bit simpler in this regard, and while clearly
some aspects of Morrowind *needed* streamlining, it can be argued that they went too far in
some ways later on, and that Morrowind is the last of its kind.
And if you want to play it today and have a PC that isn't made of turds, it’s
incredibly straightforward and easy to do so.
Unlike several of the older Elder Scrolls, Morrowind has never really been far from reach,
and is still playable on modern operating systems.
And it's currently for sale sale on digital distribution platforms like GOG and Steam.
There was also the Elder Scrolls Anthology released in 2013 that contained a physical
copy of the Game of the Year Edition, alongside all the other mainline Elder Scrolls to that point, so
it's a decent little jump-start to your collection if you don’t want the individual boxes.
And finally, I have to mention the modding scene, which has always been a key part of
the Morrowind experience due to Bethesda bundling it with The Construction Set.
This is a comprehensive bunch of editing tools, and is the same SDK Bethesda used to create
the game itself so it allows you to do pretty much anything you can think of.
And the modding scene is still thriving through sites like Nexus Mods, complete open source
engine revamps like OpenMW, and large-scale content compilations like Morrowind Overhaul.
There are fan-made mods, patches, and tweaks to address practically every shortcoming I
mentioned throughout this review, so if you look in the right places and spend a certain
amount of time you can basically forget everything negative I said and make Morrowind the most
perfect game in the history of time.
All right, maybe that’s a bit much, but my point is that this game’s player-guided agenda
just doesn’t stop, and continues well beyond what comes in the package.
Quite simply, if you haven’t played Morrowind yet, I implore you to give it a shot.
I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of things to see and do and experience, to the degree that
there’s a good chance that your favorite thing in the game might be something I didn’t
even mention!
Morrowind is just a big, beefy, beautiful role-playing experience, and I fully expect
us to still be talking about it in another fifteen years.
It is by no means perfect, but it’s still what I would call a masterpiece
in its own admittedly flawed way.
*Morrowind exploration music plays*
And yes, in case you're wondering I am quite curious about the Morrowind expansion for
The Elder Scrolls Online. I don't know if there's gonna be a video, but there are other Elder Scrolls videos
already and more to come in the future. So stay tuned!
And thank you for watching!