‘Those watching on from the docks scream out, “All you’re good for is Slaughterfish food!” while I jump from Tel Mora’s pier. But their cries can’t hold me back.
I swim to the east, while the fog of the Inner Seas roll in, and their doubt begins to gnaw away at the back of my mind. What if they are right?
And then I see it. Muddled at first, but then clearer as it rises from the fog. The harbour bells of Firewatch ring out, and I float atop the water staring in awe.
Morrowind was a game full of such “wow” moments: feelings of discovery that slowly fade before you set back out on the hunt for the next one. For a development team, that “wow” moment is everything. It’s one they, too, are hunting for, while they spend years flipping virtual tables to find it.
The previously described “wow” moment is the one where the citizens of Tamriel wake up, and find that Bethesda’s invisible walls – the never-ending seas that kept you on the island of Vvardenfell over the course of Morrowind’s main game – have been torn down, replaced by new lands to explore. They look out over the seas, and find, against their better knowledge, that the world is no longer flat. For a team of modders creating that world, that moment was a long time in the making…’