Will Bethesda Ever Remake Morrowind? Don‘t Get Your Hopes Up

As a passionate Morrowind fan who has put hundreds of hours into Bethesda‘s 2002 open world classic, I would absolutely love to see a full remake come to life with today‘s advanced graphics and gameplay. Running through the mushroom towers of Vvardenfell with modern visuals and combat mechanics would be a dream come true.

Unfortunately, based on recent comments from Bethesda Game Studios executive producer Todd Howard, it seems very unlikely that my fellow nostalgic gamers and I will get the chance to revisit Morrowind in remastered form anytime in the foreseeable future.

Why a Morrowind Remake Just Isn‘t Feasible

During an interview at the Develop:Brighton conference in February 2023, Howard was asked if Bethesda had any plans to remaster past games like Morrowind. His response was fairly definitive:

“I don‘t want to say never but at this point, no, we don‘t have any plans to go back and do that.”

He went on to explain that given how old Morrowind is from a technological standpoint, a full remake essentially would require rebuilding the entire game from the ground up:

“Morrowind, in particular, is a very old engine and a lot of that has to be redone. So to bring something that we feel would represent Morrowind well would almost be like redoing the game.”

In other words, remastering Morrowind would basically be no different than developing an entirely new AAA open world RPG. It would demand just as many resources and involve recreating every asset, system, quest, etc. to function on modern software. That‘s an arduous process even for much more recent games.

Based on Howard‘s comments, Bethesda simply doesn‘t have the bandwidth to dedicate such substantial resources to remaking a 20-year old game like Morrowind right now. They have larger priorities.

Bethesda is Focused on Brand New Games, Not Remakes

It‘s important to note that Bethesda Game Studios is still a fairly small development team by AAA standards. Despite being owned by Microsoft now, their team of around 400 is focused primarily on two major upcoming releases:

• Starfield: An all-new science fiction IP launching in 2024. Set in space with over 1,000 explorable planets, this is the biggest project Bethesda has ever developed.
• The Elder Scrolls VI: Likely still 4+ years away but set to drive massive hype as the long-awaited next chapter in Bethesda‘s fantasy open world RPG saga.

With these two monumental new games commanding developers‘ attention, Howard emphasized it just isn‘t feasible to also dedicate resources to remaking past titles, no matter how beloved:

“To do [a remake] properly, we felt the time we would spend doing that is better spent on something like Starfield or Elder Scrolls 6.”

So while I and many other fans would gleefully declare “shut up and take my money” for a Morrowind remake, Bethesda‘s small but ambitious team is fully committed to breaking new ground rather than rehashing old territory in the foreseeable future.

How Fans Are Still Enjoying Morrowind in 2024

Morrowind‘s uniquely bizarre and immersive open world has cemented its status as one of the greatest RPGs of all time. And thanks to continued mod support and a recent backward compatibility patch for Xbox Series X/S, fans are still able to revisit Vvardenfell (warts and all) even 20 years later with a few visual upgrades.

However, for gamers like myself who crave a full-fledged Morrowind remake, our best bet is to keep tabs on the incredible fan-driven project Skywind. This ambitious volunteer team has been painstakingly recreating Morrowind within Skyrim‘s modern engine since 2012.

The results thus far look spectacular, capturing Morrowind‘s alien landscape on a visually stunning new foundation:

[Skywind Teaser Trailer screenshot]

While Skywind has no set release date and volunteer projects of such massive scope often go unfinished, backing this passionate fan undertaking may be nostalgic gamers‘ best chance to fulfill their Morrowind remake dreams.

For my part, I‘ll continue to happily replay Morrowind in its original form while modding it to the nines, all while holding out hope that one day, Bethesda gives us the Vvardenfell of our dreams. But I won‘t be holding my breath for Howard and team to shift resources away from their ambitious new projects anytime soon just to please nostalgic players like myself.

Here‘s hoping The Elder Scrolls VI at least takes some cues from Morrowind‘s uniquely weird and revolutionary open world design! What features would you want to see from Morrowind revived in Bethesda‘s next fantasy epic? Let me know in the comments!