No HD Remake of Elder Scrolls: Morrowind Coming

While everyone can agree that The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is probably the best of the Elder Scrolls games so far (I mean, when you have mods that turn dragons into Thomas the Train Engine, you've just about perfected the art of video games) it's far from the most beloved. In fact, among fans of the series, Morrowind is largely considered to be the most cherished. While it could be a little... obtuse at times, it was a kind of revolution at the time, and compared to the other Elder Scroll games, it was just downright... strange. It delved into the more abstract, crazy parts of the world of Tamriel, something that the comparatively tame Oblivion and Skyrim hesitated to do.

Well, rumors have been circulating--and it seems very likely--that Bethesda plans on releasing a HD remake of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, with all the DLC attached, for the Xbox One and PS4. And while that's certainly exciting news, long-time fans couldn't help but wonder why Skyrim, a comparatively new title, was getting the honor of an HD remake, over Morrowind, that old beloved classic.

Well, I hate to be the one to say it, but talking with GamesRadar, Bethesda's Pete Hines crushed those hopeful dreams with a big ol' slap of reality:

"To take Morrowind and then to completely rebuild it? It was an Xbox game. To completely rebuild it have it be relevant for today? That's a pretty massive team doing a massive amount of work. You go back and look at it. Do you remember the dialogue system in Morrowind? Do you remember what it was like talking to someone and scrolling through this long list of questions. You put that out for someone that just finished Skyrim and they're going to be like 'What in the hell...?' Those great games are great for what they were but I don't know if we're ever going to spend time going back to old stuff and saying 'okay here it is now on this console exactly like it was'"

A game from a different time with no mass appeal to a modern audience? Not a nice answer, but... not an incorrect one, either. While it's not quite as bad as those old '90s PC games, there's still a big gap between design principles and standards from now and fourteen years ago. Perhaps it's not as bad as a Fallout 4 fan trying the first game for the first time, but there's still going to be some culture shock that Bethesda isn't interested in dealing with.

Oh well. There are always mods. Delicious mods.