Nostalgiablivion: Morrowind's First Quests In Skywind

Oh Skywind, let me count the ways. For those not in the know, Skywind is a Skyrim mod that aims to transplant the entirety of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (aka, the best Elder Scrolls) into Skyrim's more modern engine while maintaining the former's gorgeously bizarre sense of style. Locations, NPCs, quests, the mudcrab merchant who essentially functioned as my best friend in middle school - everything's going in. It's an absurdly colossal undertaking, and yet unlike just about every other total conversion mod out there, it's actually going places. INCREDIBLY NOSTALGIA-PROVOKING video of Morrowind's re-envisioned first areas below.

The visuals are splendid, but I think it's the music that really got me. I haven't heard that theme in years, and it took me right back to my youth. Countless hours spent surfing around in Silt Striders' sloughing guts, discovering every last secret, and listening to my friends chatter in animated awe about becoming vampires. I don't think I really realized just how formative of a game Morrowind was for me until just now. To the Gaming-Made-Me-O-Copter!

Nostalgic pinings aside, I'm impressed yet skeptical. Most of the video was composed of environments, with only a splash of combat and a brief shot of a guard NPC to defiantly shout, "Hey but also this is a videogame and not just a bizarro world landscape simulator!" I did hear promising things back when early versions were available for download, though. So there's that, at least.

I'm very, very hopeful for Skywind's continued progress, though. I'm basically dying to leap back into Morrowind, to the point where I doubt I'll be able to wait for this mod to come out in any vaguely complete form. For now, all we can do is follow along on the Skywind forums and keep our fingers crossed for the best. Back in the day, mine were those of a downtrodden yet wily Argonian, and I can already feel the scales slipping back over my skin.