The fact that folk are still striving to keep The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind alive speaks volumes for how loved it still is in certain circles. OpenMW – an “engine re-implementation” for the 2002 sandbox – is one such project that wants to let players “edit or create their own original games.” Courtesy of two videos released this week, OpenMW is making some decent progress towards realising a Morrowind multiplayer, even if it’s early days yet.
Love yourself some role-play? I’m sure you’ve played all of our best RPGs for PC, then, right?
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is 16 years old this year. While I let that fact bound around in your head for a second as you contemplate life and lament how it’s slipping through your fingers, I’ll tell you that OpenMW differs from the other Morrowind overhauls you might’ve heard of before – like, Morroblivion, Skywind, or Morrowind Rebirth, for example – in that it’s a standalone engine intended to future-proof itself for modern computers.
The following videos posted by Stanislav Zhukov show a basic synchronisation demo of Morrowind running on a single machine, and also an attack animation:
At the moment, OpenMW is on its 0.37.0 release, and an FAQ on its site suggests multiplayer won’t be considered before release 1.0, thus full implementation of the above demos is likely a ways away. Nonetheless, cutting about Morrowind with a pal by your side sure is a cool thought.
“There are probably some technical factors about OpenMW that would make it extremely complicated, messy, and painful to implement,” reads a section of the engine’s FAQ. “However, sometime in the future, some sort of co-op feature for OpenMW could be a possibility. OpenMW will probably never support MMO style gameplay.”
Thanks, RPS.