I still find it difficult to believe that projects like Skywind, which aims to port Morrowind into the Skyrim engine for the increased pretties and stability, may one day come to fruition. We live in a post-Black Mesa world, however, so anything is possible. Like its sister project Skyblivion, Skywind has been coming along nicely in recent months and a new video update has been released to reassure fans and show off the latest developments.
These environments are actually new to me as I never owned Morrowind, with Oblivion being my first Bethesda epic. Azura’s Coast looks fantastic – I absolutely love that styling of rock formation with hexagonal columns. It’s popped up in a few games recently and looks so wonderfully otherworldly despite its semi-realistic nature that it always seems to fit in with other fantasy trappings.
With many of the environments now constructed and other areas like monster models well on the way (that Kwama Forager is the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen), Skywind really is getting there. The most recent blog post discusses mechanical challenges rather than artistic ones, talking about the differences between the way Morrowind and Skyrim handle dialogue, including crowd-sourcing voice acting for Skywind.
There’s also recently been activity on the Skywind Twitch page, where they’ve been streaming some of the landscape development. They’re irregular, so it’s probably worth giving it a follow if you’re interested in seeing more. The guy who made the above trailer also has a Patreon to help him create more videos. Do note it’s not for the actual development of the mod though, just to get more footage out to the public. I do wonder if mod makers, particularly on big projects like this, realise just how willing their fanbases would be to fund their content. It’s a big old bag of hellish writhing worms these days of course, but it’s worth pointing out this work has serious value and people would be willing to pay to make it happen.
Check our guide to the bestSkyrim mods 2015