Skyrim DLC Full of Bugs?

Five Reasons that Morrowind would be an Epic Skyrim DLC.

You're an adventurer in an alien land. The local flora is dominated by evil, spine-covered vines and the occasional towering mushroom tree. A beast bellows somewhere just out of sight, within a haze of rust-colored ash. 

Drawing your bow, you feel safe knowing that you have a collection of enchanted arrows standing by - despite the fact that, lacking a quiver, nobody is quite sure where you're keeping them. Another roar erupts from the ash and suddenly the beast comes barging out, a big toothy head with legs. You backpedal at full speed, firing arrow after arrow. 

BACKPEDAL FOR YOUR LIFE!

The arrows seem like they should be hitting, but you know better. This monster is... apparently really good at dodging, or something.

Finally, an arrow hits. But the charging beast is still coming. You fire another, and it also hits. You're getting really good at this. Your foe is almost dead, but it's also almost on top of you now. You draw out your sword and begin swinging hopelessly at the creature. Again, you curse it's impeccable dodging skills, because it seriously looks like the blows should be hitting. The thing is literally right in front of you. They're probably glancing off its thick hide... or something.

Yet you land a killing blow against all odds. The beast topples and falls down, and with a flourish of majestic music, you feel like you could potentially be more powerful than you were before. But you're not sure. You will have to sleep on it.

If this scenario sounds familiar to you, then you've probably played Morrowind, the third installment in Bethesda's acclaimed Elder Scrolls series. While certainly rife with plenty of laughable gameplay mechanics in this next-gen age, Morrowind continues to be a beloved mainstay for many fans of the series. Almost ten years after its initial release in 2002, gamers are still exploring Morrowind, and the modding community is as active as ever. 

Yet while many Elder Scrolls fans continue flocking to Morrowind the game, many suspect that even more will be making the journey to Morrowind the province, in a future DLC for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. With the exciting discovery that all of Tamriel, the setting of the Elder Scrolls games, has been rendered and included in Skyrim, many fans are speculating that an upcoming DLC will allow players to venture into the provinces bordering the frosty land of the Nords, including High Rock, Cyrodiil, and of course, Morrowind. 

Personally, I think Morrowind wins the ticket.

But what exactly makes Morrowind such a great place for a DLC, anyways? Many gamers don't see the point. Sure, if you're a sucker for eating bugs and talking to brooding Dark Elves, it's practically the Bahamas, but what about Morrowind would draw scores of excited Skyrim players across the Eastern border?

Well, actually, there are a few things.

1. Story

If you're like many Elder Scrolls fans, you may have heard about two novels written by Gregory Keyes, considered reading them, and then forgotten about them completely. If you're a fan of Morrowind, you probably discredited them as un-canon because "seriously, this guy can't just destroy the whole province on a whim. That's stupid."

Yet at the release of Skyrim, we learned that it was true. Morrowind was blown up by... well, by something we would know more about if we actually read the books. Red Mountain up and exploded again, supposedly.

The big thing here, though, is that most of us don't have a clue why.

The first words spoken to a Dunmer Dovahkiin in Skyrim are "Another refugee? The Gods really have abandoned your people." Throughout the game, we see countless displaced Dunmer from Morrowind, from the Grey Quarter in Windhelm to the huge Shrine of Azura, high in the mountains. Many gamers will be wondering, "Why? What the heck happened to Morrowind?" A DLC taking us there provides an extremely visual answer to that question.

This is actually what it looked like before.

Yet many gamers still claim that a DLC featuring Morrowind is pointless, seeing as the province was destroyed.

Well now, that's only half true. While the eruption of the volcano Red Mountain definitely gave Morrowind a fresh coating of ash, the province is still more or less intact. Now, roughly 150 years after the devastation, life is undoubtedly coming back to a recuperating, yet undeniably changed, Morrowind. The perfect setting for a killer storyline.

2. DRAGONS

The whole point of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is that the mythical dragons are coming back, and it's up to the Dovahkiin to kill all of them and eat their souls like candy. Surely that kills the prospects of a Morrowind DLC right there; there aren't any dragons in Morrowind! Right?

As far as candy goes, this dragon's soul tasted like Mars bar.

Actually, I'd be surprised if they weren't as thick as thieves there.

Morrowind is the closest province to the foreign continent of Akavir, which is where all the dragons were originally kicked out of. Morrowind has the potential for a veritable crap ton of dragons, and to avoid tedium after defeating scores of them in Skyrim, the alien province could feature a multitude of new, dangerous breeds rising from the dead. A reputable source has even claimed the existence of invisible land dragons that have prowled Morrowind for years...

Even better, the existence of dragons in Morrowind could easily lead to the inclusion of another influential group from Elder Scrolls lore: the Akaviri.

A collection of races, including the monkey-like Tang-Mo and the samurai-esque snake people known as the Tsaesci, Akaviri are no strangers to Tamriel (the Tsaesci having invaded the continent on more than one occasion). Their reappearance now would not only make sense, due to how royally screwed up Tamriel is, but would also provide an epic challenge for the Dovahkiin.

"I challenge you, sir, to a gentlemen's duel."

3. The Gateway

If you've read about future Skyrim DLC's at all, you've likely heard about the gateway north-east of Stendarr's Beacon. Theoretically, it leads into the province of Morrowind, but as of yet it's blocked by an invisible wall, insurmountable except for the skilled use of...… the no clipping console command.

That's huge news, though. All it takes is for Bethesda to go into the creation kit, click on one invisible wall, tap the delete key, and boom. Morrowind's open. No funky subways or train tunnels, no teleportation, nothing like in any other Bethesda game. You just walk underneath an archway and you're there. Ready and able to be bonked over the head by an Ashlander and dragged straight into a new plotline.

Bonking Imminent

Potentially the most exciting part about all this is the possibility of bringing companions into a DLC.

Fallout: New Vegas, another game by Bethesda (basically), already set the trend for this, allowing you to bring companions into an area after the completion of its respective DLC's storyline. But I suspect Bethesda may be planning to take it further, by allowing you to have them with you at all times.

Just visualize it. Instead of repeatedly setting off floor traps and running indiscriminately through that hallway of swinging blades, now our beloved Lydia can fall into pits of lava, or drown in an underwater grotto. The possibilities are practically endless!

She is sworn to carry your burdens... repeatedly, over pressure plates.

4. Nostalgia

But the truest thing to be said about a return to Morrowind is that the nostalgia factor would be huge. Familiar creatures like the nix hound and, of course, the guar (D'AWWW!) will make a lot of gamers feel right at home.

D'AWWW!

You've got that awesome Netch leather armor, wicked sharp Chitin blades, and even revamped Ancestral Tombs to cure any case of Draugr dreariness. Carriages? Hell, we don't need no stinkin' carriages. It's all about Silt Striders in Morrowind.

From a marketing standpoint, Morrowind also offers two things that Elder Scrolls fans, both new and old, have been consistently requesting since shortly after Skyrim's release. 

More Daedra, and more Dwemer.

The creepy, M.C. Escher-style Daedric ruins of Morrowind would translate brilliantly on next-gen systems, and naturally would mark the return of a host of classic Elder Scrolls Daedra.

It seemed fishy that Bethesda only chose to include the bare minimum Daedra in Skyrim, but it would explain everything if they were just holding out for the DLC. Funky old ruins filled with Daedroths, Scamps, and Golden Saints would make everything worth it.

"Oh sweet, a diamond! Wait, what was that noise behind- AHHH!"

And the Dwemer! Who doesn't love the Dwemer?

Well, perhaps the people who have recently been beaten to a pulp or steam-cooked by a Dwemer Centurion, but yet isn't that exactly why we love them so much? The good news is that Morrowind is chock full of Dwemer ruins, but more importantly, its chock full of Dwemer lore. 

Veteran Elder Scrolls gamers already have a pretty good inkling as to why the Deep Folk disappeared, but for many new members of the community, it's still as much of a mystery as ever.

Even for veterans, Morrowind in 2002 only took us as far as the gated city of Mournhold when it came to exploring the province; we've barely even seen 25% of it. There's bound to be plenty more to learn in ruins on Mainland Morrowind. 

Pictured: Learning.

5. Potential

Last but not least, a DLC set in Morrowind allows for even more development of the ever-growing Elder Scrolls series. Equally as important, it has the benefit of being able to tie seamlessly into Skyrim, further making the world feel immersive and real for the player. Seeing the landscape transition from snowy pines to jagged, alien mountains and soaring Emperor Parasol mushroom trees would be an epic visual for any gamer, and exploring the ruins of Morrowind after the eruption of Red Mountain completely reinvents the whole province.

There is, of course, the issue of scale. Skyrim's Vvardenfell would definitely be smaller than the Vvardenfell in Morrowind. The reason the island was so large in Morrowind was to house a full game's worth of towns, villages, caves and ruins, but with a full province available in a Skyrim DLC, Morrowind doesn't really need to be so jam-packed. As is to be expected, Red Mountain resolves this situation, too.

It's not at all outlandish that the volcano's eruption could wipe small villages out of existence, and bury caves and even ruins under a heaping pile of rust-colored ash. Vvardenfell would only need to feature the major landmarks (think withered Sadrith Mora, the broken underwater rubble of Vivec and Ebonheart, and the Daedra-infested ruins of Ald-Ruhn). 

Picture this, but with a lot more fire.

I have this amazing visual of a rugged group of Ashlanders, leading their guar herds through the ash-filled ruins of Balmora. Once again -- potential.

Of course, all signs show that any DLC for Skyrim will be a long ways off, so it will probably be a while until there's any word on where it will take place. From the sound of it, we're looking at 2-3 large, substantial expansions, so the sky really is the limit when it comes to DLC. Bethesda has even said that they aren't ruling out changes in gameplay mechanics, so for those of us still holding out on levitation spells, there is yet hope. 

I stand firmly by the assertion that our next Elder Scrolls adventure will be in Morrowind, and I really, really hope that I'm right because, seriously, forget dragon riding.

I wanna ride a Silt Strider.