This freshly updated mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is trying to bring back some of that classic early 2000s Bethesda jank, by adding one of Morrowind’s most beloved (and simultaneously detested) features into the game.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is certainly one of the games of all time.
Do not get me wrong, I absolutely love Morrowind, but some of its cumbersome, odd design choices baffled people back in 2002, and they’re arguably even more baffling 23 years on.
But that’s also sort of why I love it. The Bethesda we know today has a far more streamlined approach to game design, so they’ll almost definitely never make a game as ridiculous as Morrowind ever again.
Case in point, Morrowind has a rather odd approach to quest-essential NPCs. And by “odd” I mean “unfathomably insane”, because Bethesda had absolutely zero qualms about letting you murder main quest NPCs– regardless of whether or not you’d started, finished, or were halfway through the main story quests they were required for.
The game will warn you if you decide to lop off the head of an important NPC, but you can still continue playing the game afterwards. Obviously, in the majority of cases, you won’t be able to finish the main questline if you do, yet the option to do so is still on the table.
Morrowind won’t just cut to black if you do so. You get a little pop-up telling you that your playthrough is irrevocably borked and that you should probably revert to an earlier save file, and that’s it.
Obviously, this feature, if you can technically call it a feature, isn’t something Bethesda opted to bring back for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, as dozens of quest NPCs are marked as “essential” and will merely drop to their knees if you try to murder them.
Modder powerofthree clearly thought this was lame, however, as they’ve just released a new mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim over on Nexus titled Essentials Be Gone II, and what it allows you to do is probably pretty self-explanatory.
It’s an Unconventional Blast From the Past
I’m sure some of you out there are wondering, though: if you’re playing on PC, can’t you just kill essential NPCs through the use of console commands anyway?
Yes, you can, but powerofthree’s mod also adds a Morrowind-style pop-up too, which warns you about your colossal mistake in exactly the same way.
I can only hope that Bethesda embraces its goofier side with The Elder Scrolls VI and gives you the option to murder everyone in the game, regardless of importance, because I think modern AAA games are sorely in need of some extra jank these days.
