I talked about TES3MP and then got back on a Morrowind kick when I wrote about Fallout 76 the other day, and since I don't want to be seen as too negative I want to talk about what I consider Bethesda's crowning triumph.

For a game that's old enough to drive a car, it stands up surprisingly well.

Trailer courtesy of Bethesda Softworks

Morrowind is an incredibly complex game, and that's part of its magic, but it's also entirely unpretentious. I want to briefly discuss a few things that make it good and justify the fact that I've lost another bunch of hours of my life to it.

1. Dynamics

Morrowind was considered something of a revolutionary title back in 2002 because of how much it had that was emergent systems-driven gameplay as opposed to scripted gameplay. Now Morrowind looks a little tame in this regard, but the sheer amount of mechanics that can go into any particular encounter are boggling; you have stealth, magic, traditional combat, and inter-character social dynamics going on, and while there are hardware limitations that lead to almost all of this being focused on the player (i.e. you aren't going to see guards come to your aid in a fight, because they're only concerned with player behavior, though some people who witness you commit a crime will care and others will not), but it's still a fascinating look at one of the first real immersive open-world titles.

2. The World

Morrowind is an alien world.

Mushroom trees. Houses inside mushroom trees. Houses inside mushroom trees that you need levitation magic to fully access because the owners are fine with this being a constraint of visiting them.

Almost every monster native to Morrowind is interesting and unlike analogues elsewhere and the game embraces providing a universe that is full of dark intrigue.

And cliff racers.

Image from the UESP wiki.

I remember them being worse than they are, but they're still pretty annoying.

3. Factions

It takes place in the fantasy universe of Tamriel, but even beyond that Morrowind is unusual and surreal. It focuses on drama between the Imperials, a fairly traditional fantasy faction, and all sorts of different in-game factions surrounding an ancient prophecy.

Generally, however, the player gets involved in the affairs of a variety of noble Houses and helps them sort out their issues. There are several guilds, religious groups, and political factions, and players can join several of them on any given playthrough, completing missions that are often deep and complicated.

4. Difficulty

Morrowind isn't going to hold your hand, and that's interesting among games these days. They added a difficulty slider (apparently in a post-release patch, from what I can find online), and it's still a brutally punishing game with the settings on minimum.

There's a Fatigue economy in the game that is a major factor in every action (even buying and selling items!); run into battle and you'll probably miss a lot before you ultimately get dispatched by a humble mudcrab.

There are also no minimaps with quest markers to help you find your way, though you do get written directions to most objectives. Though this can make questing difficult, it also encourages players to pay attention to their environment or get lost in a terrific universe.

The payoff for the difficulty is the feeling of mastery and accomplishment that few games can offer.

5. Community

Morrowind has been modded and followed for years. I'm running a modded setup of OpenMW, a complete open-source engine rebuild of Morrowind that enables some more complicated mods (like my currently active leveling mod, which allows characters to go beyond the original game's constraints on attributes) while improving stability and performance on modern machines.

Other projects like Tamriel Rebuilt still seek to add content to the game, and do a good job of staying active and releasing updates.

Wrapping Up

Morrowind holds a lot of nostalgia for me, but it's also a legitimately good game that keeps getting better as the years go on.

Few games manage to have the same level of depth even to this day, and the story is woven into mechanics in a way that remains novel even in an era where Morrowind has to compete with hundreds of other games to stay unique.