Elder Scrolls Retrospective

Written by James Dauer  on July 07, 2006

Special: Elder Scrolls? They're not that old.

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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Realizing it was time to finish what they had started so many years ago, Bethesda took a no holds barred approach to game making and tripled its staff in order to make the best game they possibly could. In 2002, after four long years of blood, sweat, and tears, Bethesda released its biggest project to date - The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

Morrowind was a monumental step for Bethesda. It was the first time they fully built the entire world map without using the random map generator system from the pre-Redguard games. Unfortunately, the tradeoff was that Morrowind's real estate space had to be slimmed down from the mammoth scale of Daggerfall. This isn't to say the map is small, however. The team actually had to specially build their own construction set (which they later released with the final product) just to complete Morrowind's featured island Vvardenfell. This was also the first time an Elder Scrolls title was made available on a popular console, the Microsoft Xbox, introducing an entirely different breed of gamer to the incredible series.

Morrowind was a critical success and easily became a big seller thanks to the amazing scope of the title. Players could once more make their own characters as well as create their own customized classes, spells, and enchanted items. They could also talk to thousands of NPCs using a growing vocabulary, and read from hundreds of books and texts scattered throughout the land. For those who enjoy collecting things, Morrowind allowed users to pick up nearly every object in the game and put it wherever they wanted - something that was unheard of in console games, and was only made possible thanks to the Xbox's hard drive. Morrowind was also the first time the player could switch between first and third-person perspectives during the journey.

Morrowind was home to several new factions and guilds. Players could choose to enroll in guilds such as the Fighters, Mages, and Thieves' guilds, or they could choose from a number of Houses, Imperial Knighthood, or even to join one of three clans of Vampires. The possibilities of character growth were limitless.

Getting around the world wasn't an issue thanks to a handful of transportation options ranging from simple teleportation spells to riding on the back of giant flying bugs called "silt striders." Still, for those who enjoyed to taking things at a more leisurely pace, Morrowind featured plenty of interesting surprises between towns such as mines, tombs, and numerous side quests given by fellow travelers. There were always places to go and things to do in Morrowind.

When it came to presentation, Morrowind didn't disappoint. The game featured gorgeous 3D graphics with crisp colors and amazing water and lighting effects - quite a difference from the old sprite based graphics used in Arena eight years prior. When the weather effects kicked in, the game was a sight to behold. The music gave the game the perfect epic feel it deserved. Unfortunately, the main theme of Morrowind, while very catchy and likable, did arguably repeat too much over the course of the game. A little more variety in the music department could have helped.

The Elder Scrolls III Expansions
By November of 2002, Bethesda had already completed its first expansion for an Elder Scrolls game. The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal would be the first of two expansions for the epic Morrowind.

Tribunal allowed players to visit Mournhold, the capitol city of Morrowind. The expansion featured powerful new weapons, vast new dungeons, multiple NPCs, tons of new side quests, and a storyline with more twists and turns than a crazy straw. Of course, being an expansion pack meant the game had a much narrower focus. Tribunal basically focused on Mournhold and the Clockwork city of Sotha Sil. Still, Tribunal was a breath of fresh air to fans of the series, giving them more Elder Scrolls love with a shorter gap between games.

Released in the spring of 2003, The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon was the second expansion for Morrowind. The expansion took place far north of the Vvardenfell mainland, on the icy island of Solstheim. While Tribunal focused mainly on Mournhold, Bloodmoon focused on a small landmass that was smaller than Vvardenfell, but it was certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Major changes to the overall Morrowind system included new monsters including boars, imps, and werewolves all with improved AI. Also, once players were bitten by a werewolf, they of course could also become one, adding another strategic layer to an already complex game. Being a werewolf had its advantages and disadvantages. For one, players gained boosts in speed, jumping, and strength when in werewolf form, but unfortunately they would no longer be safe near towns at night, due to the number of silver weapon wielding guards nearby. The werewolf mechanic also had another interesting quirk to it. In order to survive as a werewolf, the player had to kill at least one NPC every night.

Bloodmoon's addition of snowy weather added a graphical touch unseen in the original Morrowind. Also, a few more mission based voice samples were added to the game to give it a little more realistic flair.

The Elder Scrolls Travels
In 2003, Bethesda took the first steps to bring The Elder Scrolls to portable screens across the country with The Elder Scrolls Travels series. The Travels series was comprised of three games: two on cellular phones and one on the Nokia NGage.

The first of these portable Elder Scrolls games was titled Stormhold. In it, players had to fight their way through a mazelike prison in order to defeat the evil warden and escape. The game was presented from the familiar first-person perspective, and all of the graphics were primarily sprite based with simple polygonal walls, but the characters were very well drawn. The game itself featured a large, randomly generated dungeon, four character classes (or five, depending on which phone the game was played), NPCs for interaction, and a progressive difficulty where the enemies grew along with the player.

The next portable Elder Scrolls game, Dawnstar, was played exactly the same way that Stormhold was, the only real difference being the background story and the character graphics. The game took place in a faraway outpost under siege by nearby tribes. The player was assigned to find four heroes who were stationed at the outpost - one of whom may be a traitor to the Empire.

As in Dawnstar, the graphics were almost entirely sprite based with few polygonal effects due to the limited power and memory space of cell phones.

Shadowkey, the third game in the Elder Scrolls Travels series, was the most unique of the three, as it was only available on Nokia's NGage. Since the portable is more geared for gaming than your average cell phone, Shadowkey was a fully polygonal game. Granted, the graphics were very barebones, looking something like an old PlayStation game, but Shadowkey was definitely the most expansive of the three portable Elder Scrolls. The game featured the same open-ended gameplay of its PC and console brethren, though limitations had to be made to the engine to compensate for the hardware. For instance, the customization had to be heavily limited. Players could not create their own classes, spells, and items. Also the graphics had to be limited. Visibility was limited to only a few feet, which could make things difficult in a pinch.

On the bright side of things, Shadowkey featured an interesting multiplayer co-op mode in which two players could fight side by side to finish quests, something not seen since Battlespire. Despite the few flaws of Shadowkey, players in need of a portable Elder Scrolls fix will definitely find what they need in this title.

To Oblivion and back...
With 12 years under their belt, Bethesda has shown they have what it takes to stand the test of time. The team has brought us the world of Tamirel, giving it such rich detail and history that it's hard not to be immersed in the series.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion features a retooled battle system and amazing cutting edge graphics as well as incredible advances in NPC AI. The cell phone market is also going to be getting a taste of Oblivion when a special top down perspective portable version of the game is released later this year.

With all the lore and intrigue of The Elder Scrolls series, it is clear the franchise will be around for a long time. As long as evil permeates the borders of Tamirel, the forces of light will always be there to quell them, and you can rest assured the gaming community won't miss an action packed second of it.