Nothing before or after Morrowind had this level of familiar-but-alien vibe. Telvanni towers of huge mushrooms, giant crab shell being a redoran town, dwarven ruin, where some npcs standing around in the dark are being held as cattle by vampires… wonderful.
I think its the fact that the game starts out weird, alien, and hostile to you (including the people of Morrowind) and the more you play the more you understand. By the time you finish the main quest, you completely understand this world and its secrets. You’ve mastered the setting.
I think oldschool games that were pre-minimap wonderful that way. The maps were often better designed to be distinct and navigable without a map, and by the end of the game you really learn the map in a way you don’t in a lot of modern RPG’s.
Gothic 2 and Risen are some I really remember fondly for this.
Nothing before or after Morrowind had this level of familiar-but-alien vibe. Telvanni towers of huge mushrooms, giant crab shell being a redoran town, dwarven ruin, where some npcs standing around in the dark are being held as cattle by vampires… wonderful.
I think its the fact that the game starts out weird, alien, and hostile to you (including the people of Morrowind) and the more you play the more you understand. By the time you finish the main quest, you completely understand this world and its secrets. You’ve mastered the setting.
I think oldschool games that were pre-minimap wonderful that way. The maps were often better designed to be distinct and navigable without a map, and by the end of the game you really learn the map in a way you don’t in a lot of modern RPG’s.
Gothic 2 and Risen are some I really remember fondly for this.