Fans are always going on about how great Morrowind is, how it pulls you into it’s world and how every game that came out after is just dumbed-down trash designed to appeal to the average dullard and nothing more. I’ll agree that Skyrim is mass-market appeal trash, the Elder Scrolls 6 likely won’t fare much better, and that Oblivion also suffers from Todd Howard’s streamlining, but what if I told you that Morrowind is even more stripped-down in comparison to it’s predecessor, Daggerfall, than Oblivion or Skyrim was in comparison to Morrowind?

Oblivion featured a noticeable lack of many things, such as many of the spells, many of the weapons, and many of the skills of it’s predecessor, but do you know what Morrowind lacks in comparison to Daggerfall? Daggerfall truly had you live another life in another world. It was a world where you actually existed and had a purpose, a world that would react to you and change independent of you. There were so many things that made it not only feel more believable that you actually live in this world, but that also made it more interesting to act within it.

Do you remember Morrowind’s language system, where knowing different languages allowed you to interact with different creatures, expanding gameplay possibility? No? Well Daggerfall has that.

Remember how Morrowind treated you as more than just a tourist, where every quest and NPC wouldn’t just wait indefinitely for you to show up? What’s that? Every quest and NPC in Morrowind would endlessly wait for you to show up and do the quest, no matter how urgent they assure you it is? That’s weird. In Daggerfall, many quests have limited windows of opportunity, and result in failure if not completed in the allotted time.

Remember owning assets in Morrowind, and being more than just a transient that truly belongs no-where? Remember how you could own houses and horses and various things to both assist you in your travels, and create a sense of belonging in the world? You don’t? The Morrowind player character owns nothing outside of their own inventory? That’s weird. In Daggerfall, the player character can own many things, such as a wagon to carry supplies on long journeys, a horse to speed up travel, a house to rest in, and a ship to travel the seas.

Remember how much of a life Morrowind lets you lead outside of the quests and the loot? Even more aspects of gameplay that let you live a life you choose? What’s that? All Morrowind has is quests and loot, and some superficial guilds that add little outside of quests and loot? That’s weird. Daggerfall has a complex net of religions and political orders, each with associated tasks and quests, and each changing how NPCs respond to you.

Remember interesting environmental traversal? What’s that? Morrowind only has levitation? Daggerfall has levitation *and* wall climbing, really letting you roleplay a thief as you climb onto the second story of a house and rob the inhabitants blind before they even know what hit them.

Remember those huge cities in Morrowind with huge numbers of NPCs all going about their lives? What’s that? Morrowind only has tiny villages of a dozen or so NPCs that just stand around waiting for you to talk to them, and only one slightly larger city made up of a bunch of tiny rooms? That’s weird. Daggerfall features cities with hundreds of NPCs coming and going, with huge numbers of buildings, and size and layout resembling realistic settlements.

Remember the wilderness between cities and the sheer struggle of getting from one settlement to the next? How amazing it felt to finally be closer to your destination in your perilous journey? What’s that? In Morrowind you can literally see multiple settlements from a single vantage point, as they are only a short distance away? The land size is an illusion created by the fog and the starting walking speed? That’s weird, Daggerfall features thousands of settlements and dungeons, and vast swaths of wilderness in between, creating believable tension in leaving the safety of the city and venturing out into the unknown beyond.

Remember the crazy, labyrinthian dungeons, the diverging pathways and the sense of helplessness, isolation, and confusion, in navigating the seemingly endless underground passages filled with all manner of foes, traps, and riches? What’s that? Morrowind dungeons are basically a few rooms connected with corridors? That’s weird. Daggerfall dungeons are multi-layered and multi-faceted affairs, which create a realistic sense of dread and claustrophobia as you delve deeper into the belly of the beast, struggling to find your way in and back out again, but also ensuring challenge, reward, and satisfaction of successfully entering the depths and emerging once more.

So what’s this about Morrowind being a huge world filled with lots of detail and lore and stuff to do? Okay I’ll give you that. It had plenty of lore, but that’s about it. It had lots of stories to tell through the text boxes, but when it came to the gameplay, it had little more happening than completing quests and upgrading loot. Hardly revolutionary.

Since there isn’t much to Morrowind outside of said quests and loot, it doesn’t really seem like there is much going on in the game. You accept the quest, kill the enemy, get the item, and move on, but the world doesn’t change. You go and talk to someone else but where is the evidence that you exist outside of the people you’ve killed? Daggerfall has you join religions and own property and even form relationships with NPCs. Morrowind makes you feel like just some guy running around doing stuff for people before disappearing to sleep in the wilderness and bathe in the river.

In Daggerfall, you’re a citizen and an inhabitant who made a life for themselves. Daggerfall is a real RPG that lets you live another life in another world. Morrowind is an action game that people mistake for an RPG because of stats and crap combat mechanics.