The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind changed everything

If The Elder Scrolls 3 MorrowindMy preteen life began on May 1, 2002. It was a collection of impulses that flowed out of my brain in embarrassingly inadequate ways. I was a person who wore pants that looked like the walls in a darkened dungeon. Only one thing could distinguish between one day and the next: whether or not the health teacher was going to draw a dick in the health class white board. It was a common practice. It was difficult for me to be sheltered and indifferent. I ended up drifting around in hell that reminded me a lot of the Garden State Plaza until I finally woke up on a boat. I had been born on a specific day from unknown parents.

I’ve always gravitated toward games with some semblance of freedom. You can zip through the clouds. Skyes from Arcadia It was as mind-blowing as running around Shenmue’s Yokosuka and questioning weirdly hostile NPCs about the whereabouts of sailors. While there were some invisible barriers and locked doors, I was free to move as I pleased, without regard for consequences and judgments from others.

Morrowind Although it wasn’t my first game console, it was my first real love. Flavor Blasted goldfish came to my rescue when life seemed so bleak. Although I had played other games, this one felt more like a way to escape reality. Before the advent of open worlds, it was beyond my comprehension. The smallness of my mundane existence was replaced by mystery, horror, and possibility in equal amounts. It changed the standards by which all future open-world RPGs were judged. It was a game changer.

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon

I didn’t have friends in school, but the denizens of Vvardenfell weren’t concerned with my lack of social standing. My outlander status was not questioned by them. They also criticized me for walking around naked in the nude and for keeping them off the more important task of meandering about a 5 foot radius while staring blankly at the distant. 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.

This was just one of many marvels. MorrowindThis is how you could fool yourself. It’s true, Morrowind This game offered unprecedented freedom. Modern games often offer branching decision trees, although they ultimately funnel everyone to the same conclusions regardless. There are exceptions. MorrowindThere were none of these gimmicks. There was often no failure state. 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. Bethesda’s creators didn’t think of protecting us. You can play 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. It can lead to new adventures in some instances. One could even kill the God King Vivec to plunge headfirst into a different main-quest route if they were feeling especially bold. The player was not given this information at the beginning. It was instead a reward only the most zealous of god-killers would have access to. This was the most fundamental feature of Morrowind’s genius design that has only been rivaled in recent years by Take a deep breath of the wild And Elden Ring. Similar to those games, there are new quests. Morrowind were found organically — through conversation and action rather than running toward the nearest map icon.

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon

Vvardenfell Island was explored by curiosity and not through waypoints. Morrowind Before we were indoctrinated into cult of Qualitative of Life. While convenience can be a way to temper frustrations, it can also make an otherwise enriching experience seem dull. Morrowind It refused to give its players food and preserved the magic. 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. Although fast travel was possible, it was limited to some locations. And you were on your feet most of the time, so the island felt huge — despite the game’s god-awful draw distance.

There was so much to discover and explore, it wasn’t surprising to stumble upon the unexpected. You could walk outside Seyda Naen’s village limits and hear a loud shriek after you had spoken with the tax collector regarding sweet roll issues. The wizard fell from the sky to his death. A journal was found on his body, detailing the hubris that led to the death of the corpse. 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. You didn’t need to be in the correct place at the perfect time for it all. It was full of possibilities.

It was packed with so many things. There were many landscapes, from grasslands and swamps to Red Mountain’s gray hell. Along the way there was vibrant mushroomsy flora. The skyboxes were often glorious, if they weren’t obscured by a roving band of Cliff Racers (footage of these creatures would not be out of place in Clockwork Orange’s aversion therapy). Und the water. Everyone’s heads exploded over Far Cry’s water, while Morrowind’s Never got the respect it deserved. It was shiny, ripply, and wet-looking — everything you want in a good water. Below the surface lay a blue void containing treasure, sunken vessels, and even skeletons.

Architecture was just as varied as its geography. Each Great House had its own design style that was reflective of their individual sensibilities as well as distinct senses about place. House Telvanni’s twisting towers were my favorite, made of huge mushrooms and featuring vertical passageways that needed to be navigated by levitation. House Redoran’s structures looked like insect carapaces, while House Hlaalu featured the least fantastical style (although I do have a soft spot for it, since the Hlaalu-aligned city of Balmora was my character’s hometown). It is worth noting that most of the game’s cities were congruous with the rest of the map. It was possible to stumble across a settlement without a loading screen by mistake, since there wasn’t one.

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon

Maybe Morrowind This made me feel familiar and comfortable, as there weren’t many places that I was not welcome in real life. Daedric shrines looked just as perilous as they were. They consisted of constrained heaps made from sharp black metal, and cage-like structures. Dwemer ruins are abandoned industrial halls, where one can see the remnants of once prosperous societies. An Ascended sleeper is an evil Lovecraftian monster of eyes and tentacles that you may encounter there. Aside from these sprawling ruins, there were plenty of smugglers’ caves and tombs in which I could explore, plunder, and die.

Every session could bring you something exciting and different. To meet an extremely rich and intoxicated Mudcrab Merchant, you can hop along the land mass that line the coast. A single Nord may be straddling the shoreline, being tricked by conniving witches and left alone to roam the countryside naked and angry. Even the most focused of explorers will be distracted by these passing encounters and other tangential adventures. Elden Ring This idea might be the evolution of the original, and the complexity and density of the world design may represent its natural development. Morrowind’s side quests and character interactions. This is like eating at a sushi restaurant on a conveyor belt.

Modern RPGs can be reduced to action-games by a simplified progression system. Morrowind In every way, it was a role playing game. The player’s ability was more important than the character. Probability was the determinant of an action’s success. This is why you can swing your sword at any Slaughterfish without causing damage. The tabletop-inspired role playing of the game made it both so frustrating and rewarding. Your skills would improve with use. If you pick locks, then your security would also increase. Because of the relation between skill and governing attributes player characters became more specific. It was unlikely that they would assume the elusive jack-of all trades position where advancement in all areas becomes inevitable.

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon

It was a matter of personal ownership that I experienced a great sense of pride in my characters. They were not random skill points allocations, but reflected my decisions. However, this system had its flaws. One was that it could be easily exploited. Only a player’s commitment to role-playing would keep them from hopping to their destination instead of walking in order to greatly increase their acrobatics skill. That being said, my Nerevarine was Easter Bunny-themed — so this type of behavior made perfect sense.

Morrowind It was perfect at the right time. My sad, gothic girl self was dismantled and my life divided into two halves. One is defined by insecurity or apathy and the other by the (Daedric Face of God). This opened my eyes to video games in technical terms, as well as their impact on me as an individual player. While video games have made great strides in the years since their release, I am still unable to accept the unattainable standard. Morrowind set. Despite some games coming close, I’m still in constant pursuit of one whose freedom can spark that same feeling of wonder that Morrowind I was given it 20 years ago.