Massively ambitious total conversion mod Skywind aims to recreate Morrowind in Skyrim's engine, complete with beloved spears and fancy alteration magics.
The folks over at the TES Renewal Team are real-life magicians. Not only are they recreating the entirety of Oblivion in Skyrim's game engine, but Morrowind is also getting unofficially remastered too. We have lots of questions about UI features, magic, level-up skills and more, but a new Skywind gameplay trailer reveals some awesome tidbits, including the return of two-handed spears.
The gameplay shows off Balmora's reinvigorated high-def beauty, complete with that distinct exotic ashlander architecture. The demo sees players take on an assassination mission for the nefarious Morag Tong guild. Joining this guild was contentious in the game and could alienate you from other factions, so you had to do it just right--I remember joining all the guilds in the game with a proper sequence. There's literal political differences that'll forever lock you out of a guild if you side with their enemies.
The footage is welcome and impressive, but it's not 100% authentic to Morrowind and there's really no helping it. The lighting is much too bright--it's Skyrim with a new skin after all--and the menu system is fundamentally the same. And of course there's no mini-map, which is to be expected. We didn't get to see skills either but the inventory system is much, much nicer than Skyrim's drab setup.
Spears look amazing and are incredibly exciting. I used spears 100% in Morrowind (Spear of Bitter Mercy is the best ever) and never got tired of them. Their absence in current TES games has been contentious among gamers.
We already knew spears were coming back in Skywind. The team showed them off in a brief teaser at E3.Bbut now we actually get to see them in combat and the results are pretty good. The animations are smooth and you can even block with them this time around just like other 2H weapons in Skyrim. Spears are technically part of a new Polearm class, so we should see other items like halberds come back.
Sadly we didn't get to see levitation magic in action, but we know it's coming.
Apart from the Jump spell, Levitation was probably the most fun spell in any TES game. It allowed you to float across Vvardenfell's map on a whim, zooming the skies to get away from enemies, traverse mountaintops, or even find your way out of the game's maze-like interiors.
The TES Renewal team explains why so much content wasn't shown in the Gamescom trailer:
"While we want to show off iconic things like levitation, cliff racers, and new dungeon types, we felt the need to show something more polished and presentable for Gamescom. This gives a great preview of our music, voice acting, spears, town AI, and more but we know it isn't exactly groundbreaking. We'll have more gameplay to share in the coming months that will give you a rougher but more in depth look into the current state of the game and it's unique systems, so be sure to subscribe and keep an eye out for that!"
No info on a release date has been locked in and we can't imagine the tremendous effort going into this project. But I for one can't wait to try it out when it's officially released.