Skyrim’s design lead says if you play Morrowind today, you will ‘cringe’: ‘The reality of playing Morrowind would not stand the test of time’
The PC Gamer review of Morrowind scored it an 83 back in 2002, which as the disclaimer at the top will inform you, is the lowest score a mainline Elder Scrolls game has got from the UK mag to date. That may stir feelings of confusion and unrest in you as it does “the Morrowind enjoyers of the current PC Gamer team,” but Skyrim’s own design lead Bruce Nesmith reckons fan demand for a remake has more to do with fuzzy nostalgia than it does the actual experience of playing Morrowind.
As Nesmith told Press Box PR in an interview, “go back and play Morrowind and tell me that’s the game you want to play again. We all have these fond memories of things that were pivotal moments in our gaming fantasy histories that we absolutely move but you go back and play a 20 year old game and you will cringe.”
As gaming hot takes go, I’d put that somewhere between blazing inferno and white dwarf, but he didn’t stop there. He noted that even Oblivion had “cringe moments” here and there—some of which he claims responsibility for, as he worked on Oblivion as a senior designer—adding that “the further back you go, the more that’s going to be an issue. The reality of playing Morrowind would not stand the test of time, in my opinion.”
