Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind unlock times announced
Undo the past 15 years
If you're of a certain age and disposition, one of your main concerns might be: when can I return to Morrowind and pretend the past fifteen years never happened? Steady on there, creaky clogs. You might know The Elder Scrolls Online [official site] will launch its Morrowind expansion on Tuesday June 6th and you might have seen ZeniMax Online muttering about launch times but wait! It's essentially already out!
As of Monday, anyone who pre-orders Morrowind can play it now. You might want to wait until the 6th for reviews, and the larger number of players which should follow those, but if you really want to party like it's 2002 you can.
Note: The original version of this post was confused by ZeniMax's terrible terminology (who calls an expansion an "upgrade"?) and missed that Morrowind is basically already out through its PC-only 'early access' scheme. I was bamboozled by a console-focused announcement. What a fool I am. Woe is me. But if I made this mistake, possibly you did too. Let's learn together, chums.
The official launch will come at 10am on June 6th in the UK. That gives plenty of time to eat a 2002 breakfast (Coco Shreddies), listen to some 2002 music (Sugababes or Atomic Kitten, or there's always Nickelback), put on your 2002 togs, and settle down for a simpler life.
The Morrowind expansion adds the lands from The Elder Scrolls III to Zenimax's MMORPG, see, along with all the quests and monsties and whatnot you'd expect from an MMO expansion.
When our Alec visited Vvardenfell in beta, he was whipped back in time and felt like he was home again - with some reservations.
"Don't get me wrong, there's stuff I'm not keen on – I haven't enjoyed the dialogue, many of the respawning monsters incline towards the generic, character movement and combat feels a bit artificial and there's a distracting layer of MMO metagame and microtransaction guff throughout – yer archetypal ludonarrative dissonance, there (Drink! -Ed). For all that, I'm having a passably Elder Scrollsy experience in a prettied-up Vvardenfell, and right now that turns out to be exactly how I want to spend my time."
The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind costs £30 as an expansion for existing players, or for newcomers Zenimax sell a £40 edition including the base game too. TESO dropped subscription fees years ago, remember, so that's all you'll pay.