The Bitter Coast looks so real, you’ll swear you’ve contracted Helljoint.
While Skyrim did an admirable job filling up its nordic world with unique cultures and settings, it came nowhere near the acid trip that is the isle of Morrowind. That game featured giant mushroom forests, houses carved from the husks of dead beings, and spiraling towers that you could only navigate via magic. However, time has not been kind to Morrowind. While you can always try modding the 12-year-old game, the ancient engine is rickety at best. Instead, the Skywind team plans to rebuild the entirety of Morrowind in Skyrim. To show off their work, the team’s released a 13 minute video, showing off the beautiful and alien landscape.
The video, which is clipped from a larger live stream, showcases an activity familiar to all Morrowind players: wandering around aimlessly through the Bitter Coast. Towards the end, they even show off a Nix-Hound, one of the many weird inhabitants of Morrowind. Why have wolves when you can have creepy chitinous beasts with foot-long mandibles and glowing red eyes instead?
I recently went back to play Morrowind again, and was surprised just how different it feels. It’s not the graphics, or the wonky combat, or even the weird-ass setting, but the sense of exploration. The lack of quest markers and easy fast travel requires you to walk pretty much everywhere, regularly checking your journal to make sure you’re not lost. That, and the entire island is pretty much a plague factory, rife with diseases that sap your attributes. I’m interested to see how well the Skywind team can capture that more meditative pacing.
Source: Skywind
Published: Aug 20, 2014 03:10 pm