After Pressing Start: Waking Up In Morrowind. Twice.

In the waning years of the Third Era of Tamriel, a prisoner born on a certain day to uncertain parents was sent under guard, without explanation, to Morrowind, ignorant of the role he was to play in that nation’s history…

With those words and terrifying visions of Red Mountain’s scarred slopes, a hero awakens in the lower hold of a ship during the opening moments of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. A gruff voice from the corner, the enigmatic Jiub, asks his name. “I heard them say we’ve reached Morrowind. I’m sure they’ll let us go.”

A guard quickly interrupts to take the hero to the upper deck. With a last look at Jiub (“You better do what they say.”), The Hero, who will soon change the politics of this land, steps timidly outside onto the docks of the fishing village, Seyda Neen.

The opening to The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind is pretty short. A player picks their name, race, class, birthsign, sees every tutorial message in the game, and gets tossed out on their ass with a friendly “Good luck!” in about ten minutes. Every single moment positively oozes the essence of this RPG masterpiece, but it isn’t until your second time through that it all becomes apparent.

You get a taste of the local’s distrust for “outlanders,” the biggest recurring theme in the game regardless of how you play, from some of the very first people you meet. After choosing your race and what your character looks like, the guard responds with a dry “Great, I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”

But that’s just it. You won’t fit in. Ever. No one in this game wants to be your friend or gives a damn about you until you prove your worth as a hero, and even then, it’s stained with the feeling that they only like you because you happen to be famous. All that resentment and the fictional racial slurs start with a guard making a joke you probably didn’t even realize was a joke.

Once inside the office and after picking out the rest of your traits, the guards leave you alone for a few minutes. And what happens when you have time away from prying eyes in Morrowind? You steal things. Plates, cups, alcohol, bread, anything you can fit in your pockets. It’s almost comical how everyone’s first instinct is to take everything regardless of value or functionality.

Morrowind knows this. Try taking something in this first area, and, yes, it will let you, but with a warning that, hey, people usually get angry when you take their things, so try not to let them see you do it. Only after returning do you realize, though, just how expected this behavior really is in the players. The message becomes a joke, admitting that we’re all a bit kleptomaniac.

Speaking of stealing, sticky fingers can trigger the game’s first quest by picking up the Engraved Ring of Healing in a barrel outside. The ring is nothing special and the quest’s rewards leave a lot to be desired, but you can easily pass it by. The first time you pick it up, you probably jump into the air with glee and think “Oh yay, free magic item! Thanks Bethesda! *brofist*” The second time, it’s a stern reminder to look around, dummy, there’s stuff everywhere for you to take in!

That’s what your time in the Imperial Census and Excise Office is really about – setting the stage for the hundreds of hours coming afterward, not teaching you how to jump or swing a mace. Morrowind offers pretty basic gameplay systems. But if you can’t figure them out, Bethesda doesn’t care. Read the manual.

Instead of using the only time the developers have to talk directly to gamers for junk no one cares about, they establish their fantasy world without ever directly saying anything.