Skyrim is better than Morrowind

The fire rises!

And now comes the point where we tip this all on it's head. Shoe on the otherfoot, claiming the new boy is bigger than the old man. Yes, it's quite the easy and popular stance to take that 'old game good/ new game bad' and with Bethesda games it's all but a given that this is the way the sentiment trends. I wonder if, for the sake of the argument, someone could neatly turn that on it's head and start from the otherside of the equation; decideing that the newest Bethesda game, with it's years of game design refinement, built up team experience and vastly ballooned resources, is actually overall the superior project and the better all-around game? Whether from the stance of observing the overall package, we can actually conclude that the Xbox original launch title is neatly put to rest by Bethesda's innovations and reiterations? Now you can see where I'm going with all this, right?

On an individual level, as in dealing with actual characters, the people who inhabit Skyrim are, as a whole, more interesting than the various Morrowind residents. That is likely because Morrowind is stuffed with far more people than the developers over at Bethesda could even hope create actual breathing characters and backstories for, whereas for Skyrim, and Oblivion, Bethesda really toned down on the quantity so they could focus on quality. Skyrim's residents are given personalities and unique topics of discussion and often times complex webs of acquaintes only hinted at with clever environmental storytelling techniques and hidden notes pointing this way and that. The majority of Morrowind's NPCs are just puppets for which general quest questions can be funnelled through. This is why the shrinking down of the landmass has been a boon for the immersion of the Elder Scrolls franchise.

Keeping on the topic of 'quality of quantity', I want to talk about quests for a brief while. Morrowind's larger questlines are long and drawn out big events, but the individual quests that make up those chains can, oftentimes, just be mind numbingly boring or uncreative. The mage's guild will have you picking flowers, the fighters guild will have you rat killing; these are all the sorts of quests no more deep and interesting than what an AI could generate. Which is probably why in Skyrim, an AI does generate these kind of miscellaneous 'no substance' quests. Whereas a lot of the less 'essential' parts of Morrowind are shoved with quests that just fill space, Skyrim's handwritten quests all attempt to be more interesting, multi-faceted and memorable. Not all of them manage this, some are collect-athons, but in general the majority of quests has more overall hits than Morrowind's quest success rate.

Of course, the lowest hanging fruit that I'm absolutely going to hit for is Morrowind's combat compared to Skyrim. Now Skyrim does not have the great and most in depth combat in the world and Bethesda absolutely need to overall the action elements of how their games played, and have needed to since Oblivion; but Morrowind was the result of an unholy union that frustrated everybody. Morrowind's combat is built by an idea that sounds conceptually in-depth and detailed on paper, utilising RPG stats and fatigue bars to calculate chance-to-hit like a full action DnD style of game. Whereas in practise it just turns out to be a frustrating and unfulfilling experience of swinging sticks that phase through enemies without doing damage. Level up your weapon enough to hit consistently, and then you'll quickly start to notice that enemies go down like it's nothing, because the sweet-spot between weapons connecting and doing decent, but not overwhelming, damage is so small that you'll have swept right past it by the time you're hitting consistently. Magic is slightly better and more interesting, and bows are always fun no matter the game; but Morrowind's combat never slips into the state of feeling good. It just moves from frustrating and uncooperative to acceptable but boring.

Perhaps it's a little unfair to put it up as a point, but facts cannot be denied, Skyrim has a better sense of set piece presentation. Shackled by antiquated soft- and hardware, even in it's largest narrative climaxes, Morrowind can't quite sell the grandeur of fighting a living god underneath a dormant volcano next to a giant Dwemer mech-suit so well. Skyrim, on the otherhand, smothers itself in the glitzy presentation of the swirling heavens of Sovengarde or the explosive scale of the battle for Whiterun. In it's biggest moments, Skyrim plays up the spectacle to the extent of it's engine's capabilities and matches the flash of an action game of it's time, albeit in the few rare moments that it can actually afford to do so. The set piece presentation isn't exactly stellar for any Elder Scrolls game, but by comparison there really is no competition between what Skyrim had done and Morrowind's very obvious limits. (Don't even get me started on Hircine's Hunt at the end of Bloodmoon; what a dog's dinner of a sequence")

Immersion is another sticking point for which I have to award Skyrim's efforts. Through the style of creating a world to the level of fidelity that The Elder Scrolls V has, it's actually quite easy to get lost up in the flow of living in the world of Skyrim. Cosying up on some warm barstool in a wayward inn on a chilly night, sipping on mead and embracing the heady boozy atmosphere, or listening to the wind howling from the valley drops underneath the Shrine of Azura; there's a sense of atmosphere that really places the player in Skyrim. Not that Morrowind is devoid of that same atmosphere, per se. In fact, I've always said the Bethesda are typically the kings of such immersion in their RPG games, but again this is a mastery of technology question; the amount of ways the player can interact with the world or have it interact with them, in sound and lighting, marks Skyrim as the superior.

And then there's Skyrim's DLC. Morrowind sort of betrays it's own design philosophy with the layout of 'Tribunal', carving out a restrictive section of map full of maze-like sewer tunnels and large empty courtyards instead of the wide open exploration which marked the strength of Vvardenfell. Dawngaurd builds it's narrative into the existing land of Skyrim and expands upon it with new locations and realms that connect with the main game, fitting more neatly into the package of Skyrim's landmass in a way that is totally seamless. Dragonborn is also a culmination of everything we've discussed so far, superior quest design, spectacular set pieces and improved technologies for creating immersion. (Just a shame about those 'waves'.) Making the DLC offerings of Skyrim, ignoring Hearthfire, a more coherent and enriching play experience than what Morrowind presented itself.

Which brings me around to the bitter end of my wanton character assassination of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind; For which in one instance, I quite literally pulled out a knife I'd already used on the back of Skyrim before turning it back on Morrowind. Presenting, I hope, just a few of the reasons for both sides of the potential coin when it comes to this endless debate that has been held for the past ten years regarding these games. Personally, I don't think that either game is better than the other because they are both just so very different. Despite occupying the same franchise and genre, Skyrim and Morrowind are so distinct in how they're constructed that I never find myself playing one whilst wistfully thinking of the other, as I would feel in other comparative titles. Thus for the sake of the argument I wouldn't land on either side too greatly, I think they're both just steller examples of RPG greatness. And then there's Oblivion. Hmm... what shall I do with little 'ol Oblivion?

Morrowind is better than Skyrim

Lighting fires.

Bold claim, isn't it? But one I've heard made time and time again by more niche members of the Elder Scrolls fandom as the franchise progressively fragments itself with each new game entry. Everybody buys and plays the new game, before inevitably peeling off and retreating to their old favourites with a nostalgic wink in their eye and a smile in their hearts. And that's the exact position I'm going to attempt to adopt today wherein I will, for the sake of the argument, detail the many ways in which Morrowind is a superior game to Skyrim and Bethesda should feel bad for not matching it's greatness. Okay, I don't mean that last part, that was a joke. But my seriousness remains; we're going to adopt the haughty high ground as we natter off today, I hope you can stay with me long enough to get to the end of the article. If to at least see what evidence I can pull out of worrying deep knowledge of this franchises' various entries.

First is the obvious cherry everyone who looks at this topic is going to reach for; the world of Morrowind is unmatched in the Elder Scrolls lore. Every Elder Scrolls game bases it's provinces off various real-world examples to varying degrees of intrigue, cultural inspiration and thematic fidelity. Although the snowy plains of Skyrim are pretty and vast, somewhat capturing the Nordic majesty of Viking homeland- those tundras and snowhills also increadibly terrestrial and safe. Bethesda didn't rock the boat with envisioning the world of Skyrim, just as they didn't stress themselves too much coming up with Oblivion's, fantasy standard looking Cyrodiil. Morrowind, on the otherhand, is one of the most original world spaces in RPG history. Giant mushroom wizard towers, towering insectile beasts, Ancient Egyptian influences trimmed down and warped to not feel in the slightest bit derivative. Just breathing in the culture of Morrowind is a fever dream of ingenuity and creative freshness that very few fantasy properties could ever hope to match. Morrowind's Vvardenfell is the best world space in the franchise, no competition.

Morrowind's handling of it's 'Factions' system is also much improved upon the very rigid way that Skyrim does the same job, with a single straightforward quest line that is often singular in scope. Morrowind is free form with an actual 'Faction rank' system built into the game wherein you travel around to various faction headquarters and accept side quests to build merits with your superiors. There's even a focus put into developing certain key skills to be actually suitable for higher positions, cleverly spreading out faction progression to coincide with the overall progression of the character throughout the course of the main game. In Morrowind, getting to the head of any faction requires tons of building connections through completing quests and improving yourself to be noticed, in a manner that is so much more engaging and rewarding than in Skyrim where you'll, quite literally, just fall into the role of guild master if you stick around long enough. 

Next up; Magic. Skyrim really scaled back on what the series was doing with it's magic, even more so than Oblivion already had done. For Skyrim every spell is really informed by how flashy it is, thus how much damage it does, but Morrowind contained entire lists of spells just for utility. Whether that was spells for breaking through locks, or spells for setting fast travel points; Morrowind built a robust and vast array of magical talents to make the idea of playing as a mage and enjoying yourself a genuinely valid proposition, as opposed to later Elder Scrolls games which all but demand a hybrid build between every potential specification. There was also a complete spell-creation system which allowed for fine-tuning of spells and, of course, the crème of the crop; Levitation. Levitation was a spell that revolutionised the design of Morrowind, not just for travel but for dungeon layout as well. How much more interesting is it to discover a hidden coven of ancient treasure not just by trudging along some linear path that any old thief could have stumbled upon over the last 1000 years, but by flying up to the highcrooks of some mossy cave and peering through cracks in the rockface to discover some tucked away antechamber far out the way of prying eyes? Morrowind understood the potential of expansive magic options better than any of it's successor's have so far.

Morrowind's narrative is a famously deep and rich thread of lore that drags the player, arguably forcibly, through dozens countless texts pertaining to the founding of the very nation of Morrowind and the origins of their subspecies. You delve into the deepest lores and bring those stories to life in an effort to become the embodiment of their messianic stories in a desperate struggle against an almost Lovecraftian-style threat that seeks to invade their very dreams, and yours, on it's journey to achieve an invincible godhood. There's oodles of interweaved complexity around traditions, factions and demi-gods that it feels like every sector of the world somehow links back to the grand struggle of the main quest. Whereas Skyrim, by comparison, is rather plodding and obvious with it's plot of 'defeat the dragons' which seems to progress itself and occur independently of mostly every faction in the game. Sure, you'll float by most factions through the course of the main story, but more just to introduce the player to their exsistence, there's no substantive interaction which makes the scope of the story seem to narrow to purely the efforts of the Player and the Blades. Not even the Aldmeri Dominion feel all that important to the grand scheme of things, making Skyrim's 'Save the world' plot feel like one of the softest I've ever gone through in fantasy.

Morrowind had itself two DLC, which brings it in line with Skyrim's 2 major DLCs. The first was an expansion into Mournhold, the capital of Morrowind's mainland, which interweaved with the major characters of the main story so well it felt like something of a natural expansion. Touching on the rest of the tribunal and how they interact with the claims of who you are, makes the events of 'Tribunal' feel worthy and formative to the proceeding few years of Morrowind's lore. If the main game is about dealing with the product of Morrowind's ancient past, 'Tribunal' is about laying the tracks of it's impending future. Whereas Skyrim's Dawngaurd is itself a separate and distinct narrative that fails to reflect back on anything really worthy to the actual state of the world, beyond how Skyrim's vampires choose to hold themselves. 'Bloodmoon' and 'Dragonborn', however, both take place on the island of Solstheiem and I'd argue the tables actually flip for it. Bloodmoon is it's own story whereas Dragonborn feels implicitly tied to the main narrative in way that makes it feel like the cap off to the entire game. Quiet curious.

Finally, there are the immersive elements with which Morrowind defines itself. Morrowind gives it's users no map markers or cheaty video game tools for quest hunting or quick travelling, players must travel the land as the people of the world would, through slit striders and very specific directions that one could very well end up getting wrong if they don't pay attention. Relationships and contacts can be built with anyone in the world thanks to the robust affinity building minigame, events occur in their own pace requiring the player to match it. Morrowind feels like a world that breathes on it's own, whereas Skyrim is a place that would stop in it's tracks if it's main reason for being, the player, stopped existing. Of course it's all an illusion in either game, but Morrowind arguably sells that illusion better with the way it places the character in a sprawling, unforgiving world that just doesn't seem to care about them until those players make it care about them.

Morrowind wowed the world as a launch title for the original Xbox and it has remained something of a love letter to fans of Role Playing Games ever since. One of the most creative and ingenious game worlds ever made, it's only fair that Morrowind has maintained it's adoration almost 20 years later. To this day people still flock to talk about the game, there's a whole new updated version of the game to run mods better on, there are active modding units making content for it, and Nvidia literally picked it as a game to show off their automatic ray-trace remaster tech on; proving it's relevance even in the modern age. Few games can boast living so prominently in the public consciousness for so very long, the staying power of Morrowind is nigh on unmatched. Who could truly argue, then, that it is not itself the greatest Elder Scrolls Game ever made? Who could argue indeed...