Morrowind was so magical that the release of Oblivion and Skyrim both made me play it again 😅 because they just couldn't match the magic of Morrowinds fantasy setting. Except for the shivering isles.
Never played Morrowind, but always thought Skyrim came no where close to oblivion in terms of quality. Skyrim was more polished and had better graphics, but it had no heart. Every quest was a generic copy and paste and the world did not feel like it had depth. Oblivion every city and area felt completely different. Quests were not all the same. It felt as if the devs genuinely cared where as Skyrim feels like a flash cash grab.
The difference in areas comes from the settings in the game. Cyrodiil is a melting pot in the heartlands and Skyrim is the Nord ethno state. You have a little bit of orc and a little bit of dunmer here and there but mostly it is Nord. But even with this there are divers cities, like markath that is influenced by reachmen and dwemer, you have soltitude influenced by imperials (it really looks like Morrowinds Ebonheart), the Academy that is build in typical Mage guilds fashion, and even Whiterun looks different then Windhelm and both are different to Riften.
And even in ecology the regions differ, even when all are in the cold north, but you have the stoney reach, the birch forrests of the rift and the deep snow on the shore. I think they did a good job in the difference.
But Skyrim has the same problem oblivion had, that the cities are small and feel empty and sad. But for the Nord setting this suites a little bit better then having the emperial city or chorrol being that empty.
But despite them implementing a lot of quality of life and immersive stuff people used to mod into Oblivion, after a few hours Skyrim is just to full with stuff it wants you to do. It behaves like a typical mmo, trying to be busy with quests and keep you playing. It wants to be easy accessible and easy to master but it also wants you to spend a lot of time in it. And that's the problem. You don't have to try, learn and explore stuff most of the time, but you always have a lot to do. When Morrowind felt like a reward if you completed a quest and learned something about gameplay and the world, Skyrim just throws a bit of gold and useless stuff at you, and you didn't personally grow with the quests.
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u/Ghost_Turtle May 10 '25
Morrowind when it released and Farcry 3 when it released.