The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind Preview

Now that the Morrowind expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online is looming on the horizon, Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a preview focused on determining just how much of Morrowind is in this new expansion. The article tries to answer whether it’s just a backdrop for gathering bear pelts or a somewhat faithful recreation of the memorable setting. And from the looks of it, it hits some of the right notes:

ESO: Morrowind is designed as a clean entry point for new players, and also to dangle the juicy carrot of nostalgia in front of series veterans who have hitherto regarded ESO with deep suspicion. I was, I admit, unconvinced this could work. I’ve never spent any time with ESO, because from afar its initial release version seemed too routine an MMO for my tastes. Though I do hear it has made great strides since launch, there has been nothing to compel me to visit.

Then I saw Vvardenfell again.

Vvardenfell is the specific region of Morrowind that the game is set in. Vvardenfell is where I first saw towering, skinny-legged Silt Striders and towns built inside enormous crab carapaces, where I levitated over a live volcano and where I met the last dwarf in the world. Vvardenfell is a place of ash and fungus, blighted and desolate, lonely and low-tech. Vvandenfell is home.

A home, anyway. One of my many videogames homes – places I need to see only a screenshot of to recognise them, places that I feel I lived in rather than where I merely played tourist for a time. Age has not been kind to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, though mods have provided reliable life support for quite some time. I always want to go back once again, but increasingly worry that, this time, the slings and arrows of outrageous technological advancement will have done too much damage and I will only ruin my precious memories.

Perhaps Elder Scrolls Online’s Morrowind is the answer. It is a meticulous recreation of Vvardenfell in a newer, prettier engine. While I do not expect 1:1 parity, it apparently covers the same “footprint” as the original game, with a flyby video showing Vvardernfell’s greatest hits. In a few cases, there was perhaps a little too much colour and life compared to the bleached and empty places of yore, but in others my breath did briefly catch in my throat. “I know that place. That is my place.” My place lavishly recreated, and prettier than ever. Perhaps a little too pretty against the murky, mist-choked lands of yore, although I am conscious of mounting rockist impulses that I should bat away for my own good.

And there is the music. An elaborate orchestral rendition of the comparatively skeletal original theme; sure, I prefer the simpler arrangement of the older version, but damn, take me home.

All of sudden, I want to play Elder Scrolls Online more than anything, although for Morrowind I must wait until June. The spell is somewhat broken when the videos switch to show action rather than landscape flybys, and the MMO-iness becomes unavoidable. A buzzing hive of exaggerated spell effects, the high-speed, puppety motion of third-person character models swiping at each other, gigantic Dwemer-tech bosses that seem straight out of the Blizzard playbook…

I won’t lie, it’s a far cry from the subdued Morrowind of memory. At least when the camera switches to first-person it looks significantly more restrained though, and it should be noted that the Team-America-does-Riverdance quality is far less pronounced in solo or small group play than it is in the PvP battlegrounds I know that I shall never play.

Also, surprising to me, was just how successful The Elder Scrolls Online is. This MMORPG.com article informs us that the game has managed to sell about 8.5 million copies to date:

At an Elder Scrolls Online press event, Matt Firor confirmed to our own Bill Murphy that the game is sporting 8.5 million players. At E3 2016, ESO had 7 million players and has grown by 1.5 million since then. This number is based off of units sold and is not simply a tally of registered accounts.

According to Firor, the population is split fairly evenly among all platforms. Currently, Elder Scrolls Online is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and XBox One.