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Open-source Morrowind project just got an update 3 years in the making that might have me saying bye to the vanilla game for good—oh, and you can load Skyrim in it now

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After the advent of rice cultivation, the trailblazing team at OpenMW—the open-source replica of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind’s engine, allowing smooth play on various modern operating systems—has long been laboring on it. However, time tends to blur memories, so it was three years ago that the actual work began. But let’s be honest, what were we even up to three years ago? I’d wager it was closer to the Bronze Age than we care to remember! Now, they’ve unveiled their eagerly awaited 0.49 update.

This is quite significant, folks! I suggest you take a look at its extensive announcement post, as the author, capo, is known for being an engaging writer. In essence, fans of Morrowind have been eagerly anticipating the full release of version 0.49 for some time now, largely due to its improvements on OpenMW’s ability to manage Lua mods more effectively.

It’s beyond my current understanding to delve into the intricate aspects of programming, but given its complexity, I can hardly be faulted: certain aspects are so obscure that not even the OpenMW team fully grasps them. For instance, when the developers mention melee combat, they’re referring to something that baffles everyone, including experts like Todd Howard, who claim to understand it.

9 support and limited gamepad compatibility.

As a gamer, I’ve been suggested to stick with the original Morrowind and its array of scripting and graphics extenders, often referred to as plugins. These allow for more extensive modifications, giving me the freedom to go wild with the game’s visuals, user interface, and gameplay mechanics. While OpenMW isn’t devoid of these options—it’s been transformed into an isometric game by dedicated modders—the vanilla Morrowind side offers a broader range of mods and more robust support for them. Plus, it has the advantage of being around for over two decades, which means a wealth of community-created content and knowledge.

The OpenMW team recently declared that version 0.49 is a significant leap for their open-source project, OpenMW-lua – the Lua magic toolkit implementation. This update allows Lua scripting to manipulate game animations, audio, magic, quests, virtual filesystem, create and teleport objects within the game, load YAML data serialization format files, save and load games, among other functionalities. Moreover, it’s been noted as being much more stable, which is why various mods, including the popular OpenMW mod auto-installer Modding-OpenMW, have been eagerly awaiting this release candidate for some time due to its advanced capabilities.

Beyond the 0.49 book-sized collection of modifications, improvements, expansions, and corrections, there are some exciting new features. For example, it’s now possible to prevent rain from passing through outdoor structures. Welcome to a brand new realm, folks!

This news is fantastic, and it could potentially mean that I say goodbye for good to Morrowind in its original form. At the very least, my next playthrough of Morrowind will likely be using OpenMW if only so I can explore all the new features.

The OpenMW team has started developing compatibility for games like Oblivion (2006), Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 4, which are built on later versions of Bethesda’s open-world game engine. At this stage, they’re focusing on easy implementations, so the current support offers basic exploration or ‘walking simulator’ functionality. The attached screenshots display familiar locations such as the Imperial City, Whiterun, and your bathroom in Fallout 4, but without any characters present. Despite the lack of NPCs, it’s incredibly impressive and definitely a surprise, at least for me.

The team guarantees that the essence of Morrowind compatibility will always be our top priority,” they assure us. “However, since OpenMW is technically an unusual adaptation of the Creation Engine, we can enhance Morrowind-compatible tools and file formats by extending it to other games. This will also enable Bethesda’s ideas and advancements in their open world game design to lead our progress.

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2025-07-04 16:32

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