Everybody has heard of The Elder Scrolls as a series at this point. With the success of Skyrim in 2011 onward, in impossible to not have heard it at least once. However, Skyrim isn't the game we're going to be talking about today. In 2002, Bethesda made an amazing game. The next installment in the Elder Scrolls franchise: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

Morrowind, graphically, has not aged well. The graphics would be considered abysmal to some now a days. However, keep in mind this game was the first Elder Scrolls game to include 3D models and environments, it was mind blowing for Elder Scrolls fans at release. They had never seen the world in such a state. You have the art-style direction of the Dunmer in the Third Era. The stylized graphic choice of showing how the people in Morrowind lived makes you feel like you're actually there. They have houses made from mud, you have light houses lit with fire, sprawling oceans filled with slaughterfish, giant flea-like creatures called Silt Striders used as transportation, amazing orange hues to compliment Morrowind's plant life of tree sized mushrooms and poison purple flowers. This game does an amazing job at making you connect with the people living in it. It's full of life and you can still feel that all these years later despite the graphics being dated. Being compared to the games that came out on the PC around the same time (Age of Mythology, Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter Nights) Morrowind was about on par with those. If not maybe a little behind,

It gets a 7. The art direction gives it a boost from a 6 as it provides the feel and aesthetic needed for the world its presenting.

When talking about Morrowind the first thing that everyone will always bring up, the music. Jeremy Soule, the man behind great works of music for many of the games we know, provided that soundtrack for this game. You cannot deny that the music in Morrowind is probably some of if not objectively the best music in any RPG to date. It's hardly comparable. The theme song "Nerevar Rising" will never cease to give me goosebumps and on occasion tears in my eyes. And that is JUST the theme song. The music they have for combat, cities, the wilderness, they're unmatched. It fits the era, it fits the environment, it adds so much to the already amazing atmosphere the game provides. You have the dialogue which in itself is amazingly voice acted. The game it's self has idle dialogue and you have to read most of the character's dialogue during conversations. But the voices they have, are exceptional. Plus the sounds of magic and the sounds of the creatures native to Morrowind really keep you immersed. Never is there an immersion breaking moment in the game.

The sound gets a 10/10.

Morrowind set the new standard for RPGs upon release. Morrowind gave your character a blank slate and you got to make it what you wanted. You can be a man who crafts scrolls to use magic, a lizard who uses a bow and arrow, a dark elf who likes to stab people and steal their stuff, anything you could think of, you could do it! There were so many people to talk to, so many choices to make. Not one playthrough played exactly the same. This game defined the epitome of replay value in RPGs on the PC. It gave you so much freedom. I've replayed through Morrowind way more times than I can count. Unfortunately, the ending of the game will always be the same. The thing that changes, though, is how you reach the ending.

It gets a 8/10 for addictiveness.


A big thing about Morrowind is that it was almost the last of it's kind in the vain of classic RPGs. In Morrowind there's nothing there to hold you hand. You have NO quest markers. You talk to NPC and have to actually write down important things that they say in order to look back on what you needed to remember. An NPC will tell you vaguely where something is. You have to find it yourself. This just added to the mystery of the new land you were dropped into. The story in Morrowind takes you through the feeling of being a prisoner in an open world to joining a guild to better your skills and encountering one the former allies of the Tribunal, Dagoth-Ur. He is the main antagonist of the game. If this all seems like a lot to go through, that's because there's so much story in between. This is all just the main quest, not counting side stories or arcing stories. Further, not even counting the 2 DLC expansions that came with Morrowind. Which in their own regard we just as amazing. The Bloodmoon DLC allowed you to experience being a Werewolf, the first time we've seen a werewolf in 3D in the Elder Scrolls and they were certainly something to be feared. The Tribunal expansion further explains and exposes us to the Tribunal: Vivec, Sotha Sil, and Almalexia. Once you think the story is over, there's hours of more content to be experienced. Each DLC expansion is filled to the brim with more NPCs, buildings, and countless more things to experience. It's impossible to see everything in one playthrough of the game. You can play this game for weeks and still have hours upon hours of content to explore.

I would say with utmost certainty, that this games Story and Depth both deserve a 10/10.

Further expanding on the difficulty, this game was hard. It's certainly no Oblivion and definitely not the cakewalk that is Skyrim. Like previously mentioned, this game has no quest markers. So it's up to the player to document important information for you to know what you're doing and where you're going. Further, this game plays like a classic table top RPG. It has an internal dice that rolls every time you attempt to hit somebody. Whether the dice rolls a high enough number or not is what dictates if what you did classifies as a hit. So you could be in front of somebody directly and just swinging a sword at them and you could miss every time only for their internal dice to land it every time. You can boost the chances of your dice rolling a higher number by increasing your skills I believe. So progress and grinding can be very beneficial in this game. This game is not easy and is definitely an investment.

Difficulty gets a 9/10


Overall, this game was a game from many people's childhoods. People regard this game to be the best Elder Scrolls game to date. It had the best story and no hand holding. I believe that it revolutionized what we know today as RPGs and paved the way for many of our favorite games that exist to this day. It has memorable characters, amazing story, wonderful music, so much content and things to do, player freedom.

This game deserves a 9.7/10
(not quite 10/10 as there are grievances mentioned in the above review)