A former veteran Bethesda developer has cast doubt on the possibility of a Morrowind remaster in the same vein as the recently released Oblivion remaster, saying going back to play The Elder Scrolls 3 now, over 20 years after it came out, would make fans “cringe.”
Yeah combat aged very poorly but it does a host of other things someone should take and expand on.
Morrowind was a terrible action game, and a fantastic hand-crafted world to explore.
Oblivion felt like a huge step back to me. Sure it looked a lot better, it was technically bigger, it was entirely voiced over, and its physics… err… existed.
But it was so bland. Completely generic environments, copy-pasted dungeons and buildings everywhere, almost any encounter a leveled rando with no personality.
And then everything they did to make the game more modern only made it more boring. Voiced over? Sure, enjoy everyone having one sentence of dialogue. Looking for stuff? Nobody’s got time for that, just follow the magic compass.
I understand why they did those. But despite how janky Morrowind could be in some aspects, nobody can convince me Oblivion was the better game.
The combat is great. It just doesn’t sit right with people that it’s not as action RPG as it looks (swing and miss) and it never tells you how important stamina (fatigue) is.
Idk, there’s the loading screen tips, one in particular says “if you’re entering a new or strange area, be sure to walk to conserve fatigue” or something along those lines.
Maybe an NPC tells you in Seyda Neen?
I disagree, it’s a matter of what you are looking for and your taste in gaming.
I prefer combat like say in Morrowind or even the original Deus Ex. When I am playing an RPG, I want the combat to be challenging from a gameplay experience perspective (it’s difficult to shoot when you start out in the OG Deus EX) and reflect the fact that you’re a low level character and that you need to learn the game and understand how combat works.
Many modern RPGs almost play like an FPS with RPG elements tacked on. If I want to play an FPS, I will play a real FPS.
General UI/UX improvements are a must, but it’s not wrong for combat to be on some level unintuitive when you start out.
It’s sort of like saying Jazz has aged poorly just because it’s not mainstream in the way it may have been 70+ years ago.
Combat always ages poorly, because anything happening in real time requires muscle memory. As developers develop new combat mechanisms, it is constantly getting incrementally better. It’s like trying to compare a modern performance car to a Model T, or an '89 honda accord. The 65 Shelby Cobra doesn’t have bluetooth or antilock brakes or passenger airbags, but there are many enthusiastic fans of the car today. The modern Shelby Mustang is essentially a remake with modern tech trying to capture the spirit of the original.
That’s what we want. We want Morrowind, but better. The classic is still the classic, so we don’t need that again. Modders can reskin the game with better graphics.