Obviously, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an audio-visual masterpiece for for a seven-year-old game. Yet, I never felt as connected to its world as I did to Morrowind’s. For the record, my favorite Elder Scrolls game is Oblivion, but I feel they all have their strengths and weaknesses. And for what it’s worth, in my opinion even today, Morrowind does the best job in getting the player feel like a part of the game world. Here’s why.

Bethesda has gradually moved from making games into making virtual amusement park rides. This is not me calling them out on anything, it’s what they’ve been saying openly all along. Companies need to grow and the big money is in anything cool and accessible.

It’s weird to call fantasy adventures cool, because when I was growing up, they were anything but. However, games like The Elder Scrolls series and the Lord of the Rings movies have successfully transformed the genre into something quite mainstream. It’s a miracle and I love that it happened. It’s probably partly the result of quickly changing sociological structures, but that’s another topic.

It would be a straight up lie to call Morrowind accessible. It’s not. It’s an unforgiving role-playing game for a hardcore gamer that wants to understand the mechanics, the world, and the thought-process of the designers who put the wacky quests of the game together. But when Bethesda examined the differences between Daggerfall and Morrowind, it was clear to them that the more accessible they were able to make their games, the more people would play them.

So, despite being a medieval fantasy role-playing game, Skyrim was designed to have all the comforts of modern world and then some. You’ve got Google Maps, a GPS, augmented reality glasses… and I’m pretty sure the next game is going to feature something like Whatsapp to contact your companions across the continent. These things are becoming increasingly important in the real world due to the complexity of growing cities and population, but game worlds like Skyrim aren’t that complex (and definitely don’t have large populations). These features are streamlining the experience quite a bit.

What is the balance you have to consider when streamlining an experience? Bethesda calls their products games so apparently they need to feature some interactivity, but would they much rather be making movies? Aren’t they the ultimate form of accessibility? You pretty much only need working eyes.

Ok, ok, so what’s the problem? Why am I so against accessibility? After all, doesn’t it mean that more people there have the chance to enjoy Skyrim? Why, yes it does. Whatever’s left there to be enjoyed.

The problem with floating quest pointers and GPS is that you don’t learn the world. You are running towards an arrow. And that’s all you do. At least that’s all I do. I have to actively stop playing the game so that I can start paying attention to all cool things the world has to offer. Otherwise it’s just…

A character tells you to go to Asdasdasdasdd and get the legendary Asadsdasads. You follow the marker until you’re there (where ever “there” happens to be). You follow the marker until you trip over a chest or something and get whatever’s inside. You follow the marker and talk to whoever happens to be standing there. Quest completed. Collect reward (xyz gold in junk you need to sell).

I’m always harping on focusing on the core experience and to be fair here, Skyrim knows its core experience and ticks all the boxes to make that experience happen. And absolutely nothing else.

I’ve played Skyrim and Morrowind roughly the same amount of time and I can’t remember the names of any characters in Skyrim, I can’t remember where anything is located, or what any place is called. (Ok, I know Whiterun, but probably just because it’s at the beginning and everyone’s talking about it all the time.) If my friend told me a name of an NPC and told me to find that NPC in Skyrim without using the Internet, it would probably take me at least 80 hours. I don’t know who any of the characters are and I don’t care. Their sole function is to be the reward-collection-post.

Morrowind didn’t have GPS or quest markers. It literally gave you directions as to how you could find the required location and who you needed to talk to. As a result, you had to constantly check your journal to see if it was the third house or second house, if the character was in the building or in the back alley, if you needed to talk to the character or assassinate him, and so on.

You were reading sign posts, not because it felt quaint, but because it was absolutely necessary. You were memorizing the names of characters, towns, locations of buildings. If you didn’t know all this stuff, you’d be absolutely lost.

To me, it didn’t feel like a chore. I wanted to know this stuff and pretty soon I didn’t even need to check my journal. I knew the streets I needed to take, I knew the locations of the buildings, I knew all the NPCs by name. It all happened quite naturally. Sure, it takes some effort, but as a result I reminisce Morrowind with joy, like an old friend.

You don’t get that with Skyrim, because not everyone finds that activity enjoyable. So, as a direct result, it was cut from the game. Actually, it was cut from Oblivion. And even though it’s my favorite Elder Scrolls game, you can already sense something being a little bit off with it.

Of course there are some hardcore RPG games out there like Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I’m just not really even looking forward to The Elder Scrolls VI. I know it will be great, but I want something that goes deeper.