Why ‘Skyrim’ Forever Remains in the Shadow of ‘Morrowind’

Fans of The Elder Scrolls maintain the third game is the series' best – and its makers have paid attention since the missteps of 'Oblivion'.

[Razzer]

You don't remaster a game as old as Morrowind. You gotta remake the thing.

[nowitzki2004]

They should have dont that instead of Skyrim Remaster. Most people I know joined at Oblivion and have no clue how great Morrowind was.

[threefootwang]

Yeah I was one of them. Nothing against Morrowind but Oblivion was fantastic, I don't feel the writers hate against the game is justified. I had way more hours put in Oblivion vs Skyrim.

[game4funz]

Remaster and ruin the game? If they kept the systems the same with slight improvements then sure.

In NY opinion elder scrolls went downhill as soon as it stopped being Stat based.

[Chaos_Order]

I guess I'm in the minority then. For me it goes:

Oblivion > Morrowind >>>>>>> Skyrim

I agree Morrowind is a timeless classic with one of the greatest game worlds ever created, but I found Oblivion had more interesting side-quests and was more enjoyable overall. Skyrim, on the other hand, I got bored of reeeally quickly and left to collect dust. I'm hoping ESVI will take place in Black Marsh, always wanted to go there. Maybe it'll rekindle my love for the series. :)

[Muadiib]

I felt the exact same way.

[threefootwang]

I only played oblivion and Skyrim, not Morrowind. No hesitation in saying oblivion was rock solid, wish they remade that instead of Skyrim.

[quent]

Because it has a better written story/world building and better hero character development on how it makes the player feel at the end of the games story, also imo aesthetically it has the most interesting world then any other elder scrolls game.

[Muadiib]

Oblivion was the best imho, Morrowind's world was the most interesting though, Skyrim really didn't do it for me at all.

[DanteVFenris666]

Morrowind did not age well, tried to play it a year ago and I just couldn't. I enjoy both oblivion and skyrim a lot more

[Princess_Pilfer]

Morrowind aged fine, it's just a different type of experience, one that literally does not exist in modern video games since they've become all about accessability and thus are fundamentally incompatible with the design philosophy of Morrowind where you have to learn about the world and then interact with it as a character with your skillset would have to if you want to succeed, because it takes a lot of effort on the players part for the system to work.

Oblivion and Skyrim are fantasy playgrounds, where you can for the most part go wherever you want and do whatever you want at any time and things that might hider that are largely removed.

Morrowind is a fantasy world, and you're expected to interact with it as a character with the skillset you've chosen would have to in order to survive. Want to get somewhere? Follow directions and stick to the (coparatively) safe roads or be murdered by bandits, demons or wildlife. (something you're warned will happen when you ask about travel at the very beginning of the game, btw) because that's what you would actually have to do if you lived in that world. Memorize convinient rest stops because they'll probably be necessary for supplies and an inn if you survive trouble on the road. Make nice with inkeepers whos inns you frequent because they charge less for supplies that way and might even have some easy work for a quick buck or know about a particularly helpful location where you can gather ingredients for useful potions. You get the idea.

[Deathdeliverer]

The main things that bothered me about Oblivion and Skyrim after Morrowind is freedom, customization, and the extremely varied landscapes. The article did mention the landscapes so I will skip that. Morrowind was truly another world.

My biggest letdown when playing Oblivion is realizing you could not truly build your own spells and, in turn, not even touch the level of gear enchanting you could do in Morrowind. My character was a Mage/Swordman in Morrowind that became a LOT more mage by the end. If you had the magicka to use it and had found some spells you wanted, you could make any spell you wanted to. ANY. I made a spell where I could full on fly. I'm not talking for a few seconds. With the soul trapped monsters I had, the levitate spell, and the feather spell I created a spell that let me and it drained so little magic because of the Magicka fortify buffs I put on my armor and reductions. That made me really see how far a little thinking and imagination could go.
I made a spell that was so expensive that even with all my buff armor I created, it could only be cast maybe 3 times. It started small and I kept adding to it. I made a spell that was on touch the enemy's armor durability was severely weakened, an explosion goes off on them for AOE damage that does mostly Fire damage, but also had damage over time electricity, Ice, and poison damage for high damage per tick for 8 sec. The real kicker, and why I had to put it on touch instead of a projectile, was that anyone I used the spell on also effected anyone within "X" amount of feet the exact same way. This one addition made the magicka cost fly up so I used on touch to compensate. Anyway, I saved (always the sign some crazy stuff is about to go down) and used my spell on a guy walking down the street. The game pauses for around 3-5 seconds, then the sound of several explosions goes off. Almost everyone outside at the time that I used the spell was dead. Guards, townspeople, the little monsters that hang out in some of the bodies of water in town. I aptly named it "Nuke" and showed anyone that had eyes the destruction. It took a lot of time overall buffing the spell little by little but damn was it worth it.
Imagine my dissatisfaction when Oblivion had not even a shadow of the spell creation or armor and weapon enchanting that Morrowind had. Then Skyrim removed it completely. With my spells I had created, and ridiculously awesome armors I buffed with spell damage and effects (hit me and you are disarmed lol. That was just the boots effect!) I flew over the storm in the middle of the map and beat the game wayyyy before I knew I was beating the game and why. That is freedom. No game did it like Morrowind and when the people that made that masterpiece can't replicate it, you know it's probably never going to happen again.