I don't like all of them as much as I like how the finished game turned out, but I think if all of them had been included as-is, Morrowind would have been even more interesting than it turned out to be. There are a lot of other minor touches, like the Ghostfence being held up by giant sword pillars, or the concept art of the Argonian that looks like a bipedal salamander, or the bonewalker that, instead of being a relatively-standard zombie, is a kwama worker with a skull set where their head would normally be. Not nearly as much as the ordinary Dunmer infected with Corprus, whose concept art here makes Corprus look like the T-virus in terms of how much it changes those who suffer from it. Tentacles? On the one hand, the contrast between his relatively unmutated form and the rest of the ash creatures is one of the ways the game drives home his status, but on the other hand, I like the idea that he's still changed by the touch of divinity, just more subtlely.
The oddest part is the picture of Dagoth Ur: I'm kind of glad that didn't make it into the game. Ascended Sleepers are playing the flute on the holes in their snout (and now I know where this picture got the idea) and several of the other ash creatures are firing laser beams out of the holes where their eyes were. The section on the creatures of the Sixth House is especially interesting. It would have been quite the change, though it does make them look more like alits or kagoutis than they eventually did. Like a cross between Jabba the Hutt and a Rancor. Guars in the released game are sleek, lizard-like pack beasts and mounts, but the concept art of them makes them look a lot more monstrous: I can see why they decided to use the more spread-out plan. One of them is the spread-out city that they eventually used in the game, but one of them is a tangled mass of mushrooms growing all among and on top of each other than I think would have looked amazing, but which would have been an absolute nightmare to try to navigate. Speaking of that, there's two images of Sadrith Mora. It's got that same kind of bulbous organic look that the Telvanni mushroom towers do too. Some kind of floating hover robe suit? The Telvanni design their towers such that visitors need levitation to get anywhere, and if they were supposed to be levitating literally their entire lives that makes a lot more sense. But in the concept art, they look like this: The other Great Houses and the Imperials give them the side-eye because they're so odd, living in giant mushrooms and doing magical experiments, but if you actually meet them in game they're just wizards who look the same as the Dunmer wizards in the Mages' Guild. Some of it is familiar, but some of it is wildly different from what actually showed up in the game.įor example, the Telvanni. There are a few in-game screenshots in the beginning of the book, though they're mostly from concept tech demos and so have a different UI and look a lot better than the actual game, but the rest of the book is all concept art. But wandering through lava channels and mushroom forests gives them some added mystery.
The "dwarves" are a kind of elf, the elves live in ashy wastelands, and the orcs.well, okay, they're pretty much standard orcs, I guess. And that's the fantasy that sells, so I'm not that surprised, but one of the reasons Morrowind is so memorable is that while it has elves and dwarves and orcs, it's not in the standard context. Fantasy literature has started to branch out in the last couple decades or so, but most fantasy games are still elf-dwarf-orc fantasy. Though I remember having it in the past.Īnyway! The best part about Morrowind is the setting. Though now I'm sad because the Amazon listing tells me that it also came with a soundtrack CD (which I have) and an Ordinator figurine, which I don't. Apparently my love for the game runs deeper than even I realized. I hadn't even realized that it existed, and checking online it seems that it came with the Collector's Edition of Morrowind, which I also didn't realize I owned. Though now I'm sad because Morrowind is my favorite video game ever, so I was incredibly happy when I was at my parents' house last weekend and I found this book while looking through the collection of old games and gaming paraphernalia that they asked me to look through. Morrowind is my favorite video game ever, so I was incredibly happy when I was at my parents' house last weekend and I found this book while looking through the collection of old games and gaming paraphernalia that they asked me to look through.