The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Moby ID: 6280
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Freed by the decree of Uriel Septim VII, the Emperor of Tamriel, a lone prisoner is transported to the province of Morrowind. It seems that the strange dreams this prisoner has been having lately may have a connection to equally strange events occurring there. The protagonist is given a simple assignment: join the Blades, a secret organization whose goal is to protect the safety of the Emperor. This leads to a discovery of an ancient prophecy and an evil scheme concocted by a powerful deity whom the protagonist alone is able to stop.

Conceived in the tradition of the Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind is a fantasy role-playing game with a vast world open for exploration. After being released from a prison ship at the shores of the island Vvardenfell, the protagonist may do more or less what he or she wants: follow the main quest and solve the mystery of an ancient prophecy, join any of roughly a dozen guilds and rise in their hierarchy by performing duties, or simply explore the gigantic island with its stylistically diverse cities, hundreds of dungeons and tombs, ancient ruins and mighty fortresses.

Morrowind uses a two-stage skill system. The hero’s primary stats (strength etc.) increase with each level gained, while secondary abilities improve by use – for example, the more often the character jumps, the more proficient he or she becomes in the Acrobatics skill, etc. The action-oriented fights are simple exchanges of strikes or spells, until one combatant dies. The enemy's hit points and condition were not originally shown; however, at the request of customers a health bar was added for enemies as part of the first upgrade patch.

The protagonist's race and gender, but also his or her reputation influence the reactions of NPCs. If a character’s sympathy for the hero is low (rated on a scale from 1 to 100), he might refuse to answer questions; if it is high, the player will get more detailed information and better bargains in shops. Most quests involving other persons can be solved by persuasion, pick-pocketing, or simply by force.

The game's NDL 3D game engine is powerful in drawing wide, detailed outdoor landscapes as well as complex indoor environments. Transitions are not fluent; houses and dungeons must be loaded upon entering.

Spellings

  • 上古卷轴III:晨风 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 上古捲軸 III:魔捲晨風 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

118 People (80 developers, 38 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 83 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 284 ratings with 23 reviews)

Breathtaking

The Good
Not what I liked, more like what I loved. I personally put in over 2000 hours in this game (not including modding). The great thing about this game is that you don't have to follow any line of quests, you can just do whatever you feel like, and if you feel like doing the main quest, or side quests, do as you please. The graphics are unbelievable, even today, nearly two years after it came out. Not to mention the size, unbelievable. It's hard to get a grip of how huge Vvardenfell is, but get a grip. The beauty in the world is amazing. Some people say that the NPC's are dull, and that they should be doing stuff. They do do stuff, walk around, thats the NPC's job, to do nothing but maybe give you hints to what to do, thats why they're non playable. And some do, most don't, but considering the hundreds of npc's, and by hundreds I mean over 1000, it is truely remarkable. And if they dont like the games way's, it comes with an EXTREMELY powerful editor that is fully compatible with 3D Studio Max.

The Bad
The bad, well, with a game with so much goods, things can go wrong. You have to read a lot in this game, as would be expected with the size of the world, and the limits on a cd. I think that the game could have had them talking about most things if it were on multiple disks, which most huge games are. Reading doesn't bother me much, but it may bother others. Another thing that bothered other people, but not me much was the inability to do much when you start out. Virtually any animal can kill you, and you can't hit anything, and most people in today's world are used to GTA and games that you start out with abilities, and don't gain or lose any of them. But you have to earn your way to the top of the world in this game, and I love that. The cool part is, that technically have unlimited levels. In one of my characters i'm level 232 (and i'm 1000 in another, but that time i used the console). Other than that, there's not much wrong with this game.

The Bottom Line
This game is, to me, the greatest game I've ever played, if your into games with freedom, then this is for you. Think of it like this, its GTA, except with a much bigger world, more NPC's and a better story, but with swords, spells, and that D&D flavor....... buy it today...

Windows · by Zac Anderson (2) · 2004

Nearly as much freedom as real life

The Good
The greatest thing about Morrowind is that you can pretty much do anything you want. If you want to be a hero you can go off and kill some monsters and if you decide that you just want to walk around the continent picking mushrooms then you can do that as well. The stilt strider in my opinion was a great idea even though you never actually get to control it yourself. This game could take literally years to get bored of if you are a hardcore player and tryed to explore the whole map. The towns and citys in Morrowind are beautifuly set out apart from one (Vivec) and you even have the choice of going in someones house, killing them and then taking the house for your own. There are also so many secrets that can be found and probably if you went around and looked in every hollowed out tree stump you could find a very powerful weapon.

The Bad
If you decide to travel by foot then you are going to be in for alot of frustration because when you are walking about every 5 minutes or so you get attacked by annoying creatures called Cliff racers. And even if you decide to be sneaky and swim to get away from the the Racers you will be attacked by Slaughter fish instead, so that usually takes most of the fun out of traveling by foot. The only otherthing that really bugged me about Morrowind was that even on X-box there were alot of bugs and I could have been running across a bridge and then I would for some reason just fall straight through it. Though this did not happen very often.

The Bottom Line
A great game to buy and well worth the money you pay for it. You can probably get this game for about $40 now and thats not much to pay for the amount of entertainment you get out of this game. If you like Rpg's or you juts like freedom in a game then this game is more than worth taking a look at.

Xbox · by Horny-Bullant (49) · 2003

EEH... Released too soon!

The Good
This game is BIG. It's graphics are BEST. There tons of activities, tons of possibilities and tons of stuff to collect. You can always play it again and again and choose different paths, its almost impossible to get bored. The music is perfect

The Bad
When I first read the review of Morrowind in a local computer zine, I was only thinking about one thing: I NEED THAT GAME. It was in Summer 2002, and I even couldn't imagine that my dream would come true. My PC was Pentium 166, so I figured it'll take years to get a new PC (I didn't have any money). But in February 2003, my dreams came true: I bought a normal, 1700MHz PC. By that time I had forgotten about Morrowind and one day I started reading about it again and went out and bought the game. When I was coming home from the shop I already imagined it: my char wondering around Morrowind, slaying stuff. But when I installed it, and started the game, I was disappointed. Why you ask? The game itself is good. REAL good. BUT. All the NPCs are just standing there. They aren't doing anything. Even the badguys aren't lurking around (except wild "animals"), they are just standing there and waiting for you. When I first saw Syena Need (sorry I don't remember the exact name but It's the first town you see in Morrowind) I thought those people were zombies because all they did was walked around and said "Make it quick outlander, I havent got much time". Why are they so boring? Why Bethseda was working on Morrowind for 6 years and didn't make NPCs more active?!?!! Even Ultima 9 has that! That is the worst part of this game.

The Bottom Line
Although it has it's setbacks, this game is good. It has excellent graphics and sound and a lot of activities to do. Buy it!

Windows · by Sir Freeman (1) · 2003

[ View all 23 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Add Game Group karnak1 (22) Dec 24, 2012
Morrowind vs. Oblivion Unicorn Lynx (181780) Jul 26, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Content

Morrowind is told to include 3244 NPCs, 316.042 hand placed objects, 480 billion possible characters to create and play, 150 billion spells by using spellmaking in the game, and six full sized novels worth of text.

Creature differences

Some monsters and creatures went through drastic visual changes from Daggerfall and Battlespire to Morrowind. First, the type of khajiit are the same as those presented in Redguard, while the Dremora were turned from fair-skinned, horned demons to black and red-skinned demons. Harpies were replaced with (visually at least) Winged Twilights, and other monsters such as the slaughterfish, orcs and others remain much the same, though much better looking in true 3D.

Graphics

Ever wonder why Morrowind can run at such a slow FPS sometimes and why the game is notorious for making even expensive, fast systems (as of 2004) seem slow? The answer is simple; polygons. While playing the game you'll encounter vast areas full of people, objects and architecture. All these are made from polygons and require the videocard to process them. Morrowind has possibly the heaviest counts of polygons in a single video game, most likely surpassing every game before it and still with a vast number more than contemporary games.

References

There is a single daedric crescent from Battlespire hidden in Morrowind, but getting to it requires some work and initiative (it isn't a part of any main or faction quest), or access to a hint guide.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2002 – #9 Best PC Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2003 (Issue #148) - #3 overall in the "10 Best Games of 2002" list
  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – RPG of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2002 - PC RPG of the Year
    • 2011 – #14 Top PC Game of the 2000s
  • RPG Vault
    • 2002 - Game of the Year
    • 2002 - Role-Playing Game of the Year

Information also contributed by calavera, Jason Musgrave, ShadowStrike and WildKard

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by NeoMoose.

Xbox One added by Kennyannydenny. Xbox Cloud Gaming added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, -Chris, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, OFoglada, Shoddyan, Sciere, Aubustou, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, Kennyannydenny.

Game added May 10, 2002. Last modified April 10, 2024.