17-year Bethesda Bruce Nesmith veteran has given his take on a future Elder Scrolls Morrowind Remakes, stating he doubts the company even has the source code any more.
In an interview with PressboxUK, Nesmith spoke at length about the company and various projects he worked on. Having left in 2021 during Starfield’s development, he offered a frank response when asked why Bethesda would be hesitant to remake the old but beloved RPG.
The problem with doing Morrowind is that I bet they don’t have the original code,” Nesmith said. “The game is so old. I don’t know if the original source code exists anymore. If it does, can you even compile it? When you’re looking at Oblivion, they still had the code. They could still compile it. Putting the code into the new version of the engine was a possibility.”
He also raised concerns around how Morrowind has aged, doubting that audiences would even enjoy playing that game today. “The other thing I would say is 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.
“People even had cringe moments with the Oblivion remake but they forgave it because they’re reliving something, they’re enjoying the nostalgia. I worked on Oblivion. I’m even responsible for some of those cringe moments! 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.”
Instead, Nesmith raises the point that time would be better spent making something new within the Morrowind setting. He told Pressbox: “Now if you were to completely remake Morrowind with the Skyrim engine, to try and rebuild it from the ground up, that’s a whole other story, but that’s an entire project. That’s a whole four-year development cycle. Why not go and make something new?
“Let’s revisit the lands of Morrowind and do a new story. You can include the giant crab palace and all of that stuff but make it new and avoid all the things that would not have survived the test of time.”
Oblivion Remastered, which released back in April of last year, proved exceptionally popular. It sold over four million copies in five days, and received numerous community mods that both added some additional wackiness to the beloved RPG and smoothed off some of its rougher edges. Bethesda also went to the community for ideas to improve the game, difficulty scaling one of the more popular among them.
Eurogamer’s Jim Trinca made a case for a Morrowind remake last year, in which he argued: Morrowind is a special game, where a beautifully unique fantasy setting is locked away behind technology and interface design that has aged particularly badly. I love it warts and all, as much as I love Oblivion warts and all, but I find the latter much easier to recommend for the simple fact that Oblivion is brilliant because of its quirks and foibles, whereas Morrowind is brilliant in spite of them.
