The Elder Scrolls world is one of my favourites in video games. The first game I played in the series was oblivion in the late 00's. I loved how you could explore and go anywhere, it felt like you could play in any way you liked and could do anything. I felt a little more restricted in Skyrim when that came out but still enjoyed the game.

Over the years I've tried to get in to Morrowind a few times. I got an original Xbox copy after playing Oblivion but never got my character past the first few levels. More recently when Elder Scrolls Anthology came out I bought the collection for PC with all the main Elder Scrolls game and decided to play Morrrowind when Elder Scrolls VI was announced (still waiting for that one). I got further with it than I ever had but playing a mage constantly having to rest to regenerate magicka began to become tedious especially with attacks from the Dark Brotherhood assassins from the Tribunal expansion. I continued this game more recently with a few mods. I installed a slow magicka regen mod so I had to rest less and graphic herbalism which makes picking plants a lot quicker as well as MGE XE a graphics extender mod. With these additions Morrowind really showed its true quality to me.

The world feels alien and hostile along with the people. The lack of map markers means you have to navigate using directions from people and notes making the game seem like a true adventure. The spell variety is great with most skill trees seeming far more viable than in later games. Each village and town feels memorable and unique. There are many factions who are all at odds making you have to choose between them. Once you get past Morrowind's flaws it is one of the most immersive role playing games you can play.

Unfortunately, Morrowind has many flaws and some design which you won't be used to after playing newer games. A lack of voice acting means you will be doing a lot of reading, but I believe this in turn allows for a deeper dialogue system with an unique conversation selection system. The lack of map marker makes you fell utterly lost when you first begin to play, especially when you don't know where major towns that are often used for directions are, but as stated earlier this makes it feel like you are really exploring when you get used to it. The combat uses dice roll systems which mean if you make the wrong choices in character creation you may die to the first enemy you cross since you can't hit it. I recommend using a character build guide for your first time playing to avoid this. There is no fast travel system like in the newer games. This is supplemented by silt striders that work like carriages in Skyrim, mages who will teleport you, boat travel, some spells and indexs but they are a bit awkward to get hold of. These travel systems also help the feel of exploration though and are more immersive than fast travel. In addition, there are a few Bethesda bugs but seemingly less than in later games. I clipped through walls and land a few times and had enemies get stuck on terrain. These are mostly not game breaking and unoffical patches can be used to fix them.

The graphics aren't as good as new games which is understandable since the game is from 2002, but i feel Morrowind has a bit of a style to it making it feel less dated than some newer games. If the graphics really bother you there are many mods for improving them. I recommend a very sparse selection of mods other than graphics mods when you first play though to get the full feel of the game.

The progression curve of this game felt great. Initially I was scared to go in to dungeons due to my character being incredibly weak and slowly progressed. As more of the faction quests asked me to find things from dungeons I pushed further in to them and with the loot was soon able to afford gear to power up my character and make the effort worth while. Soon my character felt very powerful but certain enemies were still a challenge and I took on the main quest as I felt worthy to fulfil the prophecy mentioned in the quest. I won't say too much more as not to spoil it but it was a rewarding story and ending in my opinion.

Then I decided to play the Tribunal expansion and was disappointed. The sewers felt repetitive. Enemies felt like they had been spammed to increase the difficulty and weren't fun to fight. I encountered many more bugs hear along with crashes that I hadn't seen elsewhere. Then there was a huge difficulty spike with the final dungeon. I got trapped in a room which I needed 100 hundred strength to leave, being a mage I had nowhere near this. Tribunal felt like a slog and fighting artificially strong goblins after defeating the challenges in the main quest ruined the immersion for me. Goblins should not be stronger than some of the enemies from the main quest.

I'm yet to play the Bloodmoon expansion but if it is anything like Tribunal I may avoid it. Making a new character and experiencing the other side of the factions sounds more fun to me.

Overall I love Morrowind but disliked the Tribunal expansion. I would recommend avoiding the expansion unless you want to get rid of the assassin attacks, or getting a mod to stop them. Some mods are nice to update the experience to modern standard but I don't think you need too many for them for the game to be fun. Definitely worth a play if you want a good exploration or fantasy game and can get past the flaws. For the price I'd say it's completely worth trying.

Also there are some official plugins released by Bethesda which are free to download. They are only small additions but are worth adding for more stuff to do.

Sorry for such a long review but if you don't like reading this game is not for you :)