The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind GOTY Edition

If you go into this now 20 year old game expecting it to be exactly like Skyrim or Oblivion, you're just dumb. Most of these negative reviews are from people who can't pull themselves out of their modern perspective. It's an old game. It has flaws for sure, but it's meant to be as pure of an RPG as possible. The dice roll combat is no different than your average cRPG like Divinity or Baldur's Gate and no one complains there, but because it's TES and later games dropped the dice roll combat, NOW it's a problem retroactively. That's how tabletop RPG's work and that's why it's here. If you're playing these games for deep satisfying combat, you're making a big mistake. TES has NEVER had great combat. That's not the point. It's meant to be as much of a freeform RPG as possible where you have combat, exploration, questing, stealth, alchemy, etc. Not all of these systems will be the most in-depth, but they don't have to to deliver an endlessly replayable experience. People hate how the narrative is never prioritized, again, missing the point. This is meant to be a free roam game. Even when you finish the main quest, the game continues and the world changes. It's an immersive adventure that ends when you want it to end. To explain it to the haters, this game is loved for the incredibly, detailed, immersive, and atmospheric world that few games can match even now. The lore is brilliant and features some of the most complex writing ever from Bethesda. The world in no way revolves around you. You're just a stranger in a strange land. People are so used to being treated as badass heroes without earning it. You gotta earn your reputation here. The game doesn't baby you. You feel the progression and it's rewarding and immensely satisfying. Also, if you can't hit anything, you just suck at the game. Read the manual and learn fatigue management. This game destroys Skyrim. It's people who never played old school D&D that hate it honestly. It's not bad. It's just not for you.

dlaczego ta gra nie jest po polsku? Przecież Złota edycja istnieje.

Ah Morrowind. The Classic. The Legend. With all that out of the way, let get back to Morrowind. It was released in 2002, and thus is an entirely different beast than Oblivion and Skyrim. Morrowind was released towards the end of the traditional CRPG era, so it retains many traits of games from the 90s. Things such as chance to hit or cast a spell have been weeded out in the evolution to Oblivion and Skyrim. That said, unlike Arena and Daggerfall, Morrowind was released later enough to have elements of modern RPGs as well. It's a nice balance and mods have been able to cover up it's aging qualities nicely. The most exciting mods for me are the province mods. The most famous of these is Tamriel Rebuilt. When Morrowind was being developed, Bethesda planned to include the entire province in the game (hence the title). We ended up with just Vvardenfell, the central island, due to time constraints. Tamriel Rebuilt aims to remedy that, by completing the mainland of Morrowind in the most lore friendly way possible. They've been at it for years, since before Morrowind's release in fact. It's incredible and awesome that they're still around working on it. That's not to mention the newer province mods such as Province: Cyrodiil and Skyrim: Home of the Nords (adding Oblivion and Skyrim's provinces respectively). The best part of these mods is that when completed, will allow you to traverse the entirety of a province, into another, and one day perhaps all of Tamriel, without a loading screen. I could rant about Morrowind all day, it's truly an amazing game. That's not nostalgia talking either, since my first TES game was Oblivion GoTY and I played hundreds of hours of Skyrim even before I touched Morrowind. So do yourself a favor and pick this gem up; here or physically for DRM free, mod easy goodness. Or on Steam if you must, it works there too.

Czy kiedyś doczekamy się polskiej wersji gry ?

Some people want to play a totally realistic simluation where they can't creatively overpower the system and do insane things. These people aren't fun. Morrowind was made for fun people. If you want to be a swordsman or an axe guy running around all day swinging your pathetic mortal weapons and doing pitiful damage this isn't the game for you. If you want to drink potions of foritfy agility until you can see the molecular vibrations of the galaxy and then fly around the world at mach speed completing quests like the Flash while wearing armor that makes you impossible to physically hit then this is very much the game for you. Balance is fine, even important in multiplayer games, but in a single player power fantasy like an RPG balance is honestly more a design choice. Morrowind isn't balanced, it isn't fair, so you shouldn't play fair, you should use every dirty trick you can imagine (trust me, the game will). Most importantly in order to exploit Morrowind properly you must explore and learn about it's world, which is what at it's core what the game is all about. All the crazy exploits and fun things you can do aside this game also has a very interesting and powerful story to tell about belief and the price of imortality, it's a subtle story and you have to know who to ask to find it, but it's there and it's great. In closing I'd like to note that I first played Morrowind in 2017, so this isn't a review tinted with nostalgia, I love this game for what it is even today in the modern age of flashy graphics and endless tutorials. Morrowind is a great game that has given me hundreds of hours of enjoyment, and will give me hundreds more in the future I have no doubt.