Skywind's first gameplay demo in a year shows original Morrowind quest expanded and improved
A worthy companion.
The modders behind Skywind have released its first gameplay demo in a year, showing off how an original Morrowind quest has been expanded and improved for this hotly-anticipated fan release.
Skywind is Morrowind recreated in the Skyrim engine. It's been in the works for quite some time now, but the volunteer developers continue to make progress, as the video below shows.
The video sees the player picking up a quest in the city of Sadrith Mora, NPC dialogue, voice acting, exploration, dungeon crawling in a multi-level dwemer ruin alongside a companion (Imperial Larienna Macrina), and a boss fight against a Daedroth called Hrelvesuu.
Battle at Nchurdamz is a quest that was in the original Morrowind, but the modders have expanded and improved it for Skywind, adding new writing, a new pipe puzzle, a grate scene and new daedric ruins at the end.
It's all very atmospheric, as any dungeon crawl in Morrowind should be. I particularly like the dwemer chests, and the transition from dwemer ruins to daedric ruins is pretty cool, too.
"One of the most exciting things in this video - although it may not look like much right now - is that we finally have simplified the process for creating custom creature skeletons and animations!" the developers said.
"Our Dwemer spider was the first test using these tools, and in fact uses a different skeleton than the Skyrim Dwemer spider. This marks a major milestone in our development, as these tools have been in the works for years. This opens the door to all sorts of new creature animations, such as for the guar, betty netch, silt strider, kwama, and much more."
Skywind is one of the biggest and most ambitious mod projects in existence, with hundreds of contributors working to recreate Bethesda's seminal 2002 role-playing game in the 2016 Skyrim: Special Edition engine.
"The video is not a release announcement," Amos (aka Egrets) from the Skywind team told Eurogamer. "Skywind still has no release date, but progress at the moment is more consistent than ever."