Having a way to run older games on modern PCs and operating systems is always useful.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the darkest and most mushroom-filled game in the series, is now quite old, and it was never the most polished game on the market, not even at launch 24 years ago. If you are tired of its rough edges, there is no need to look any further. OpenMW is a fan-made, open-source engine that lets the game run well on modern hardware and operating systems. Anyone who appreciates that will be happy to hear it has just received a major update.

Modders can now use OpenMW’s scripting API to create custom magical effects. That means certain additions from popular mods, such as Tamriel Rebuilt, which previously only worked on the original engine with the help of a script extender, can now be recreated in the open-source engine as well. These changes, alongside others such as allowing every character to cast spells, are shown in the video embedded below, which presents the new features of version 0.51.0. Even if none of these additions matter to you, the video is entertaining to watch, and some of the new graphical refinements look genuinely impressive.

The update also fixes several technical problems. According to the patch notes, version 0.51.0 resolves multiple Lua-related crashes, along with annoying issues involving navigation through the gamepad menu. Anyone who has already started playing through OpenMW does not need to begin again, because existing saves can safely be used with newer versions. Because of a change in the file format, however, new saves cannot be transferred back to older versions.

It is good to see older The Elder Scrolls RPGs and the communities built around them still thriving after all these years. Excellent fan projects such as OpenMW and Daggerfall Unity make these games accessible even to newcomers who may not have been born when The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was released.

Source: PC Gamer, OpenMW