Morrowboomers, rise up! Bethesda’s brilliant 2002 RPG The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is coming to the SEGA Dreamcast in a gorgeously crusty homebrew port.
Just yesterday, we covered the brilliant crunchy World of Warcraft port to SEGA’s beloved, but cursed console. While the MMO was already an impressive sight, the same modder behind the port has also been working on bringing Bethesda’s Morrowind to the system.
Released in 2002, Morrowind was only ever released in console form on the Original Xbox. The RPG was so ambitious that the game frequently restarted the entire console to free up memory at regular intervals.
In the comments of a YouTube video discussing the upcoming port, although mostly the aforementioned WoW port, modder cypress577422 revealed that Dreamcast port will also restart at points to free up memory. The modder explains that this is a “necessary” feature to bring the game to the platform in a stable form. Well, as stable as it can be on the SEGA machine.
Of course, with the game coming to Dreamcast, that should mean that the game is also possible on the PlayStation 2. While the SEGA machine does have a few minor wins over the PS2 in some regards, the significant CPU improvements of Sony’s machine should lend nicely to a game like Morrowind.
As the modder’s surprisingly functional World of Warcraft port is able to run entirely on a burned disc, we should expect the same of Morrowind as well. The modder also explained that these intensive projects don’t run as well in emulators, such as Flycast, with performance much stronger on official hardware.
Dreamcast modding as of late is exploding yet again, especially as decompilations become more popular, both traditional and lower-quality AI-led ones. For example, one fan is porting Original Xbox flagship Halo: Combat Evolved to the platform, and another is porting Resident Evil 4 to the machine.
With that said, controls will obviously be a little rough on the system’s single-stick controller. However, with keyboard and mouse support on the machine, there’s always a way to play these games on Dreamcast. (Although, that Resi 4 port will be perfectly playable with the single stick!)
Since its discontinuation in the early 2000s, the SEGA Dreamcast has retained a phenomenal homebrew community. To this day, fans are still porting titles and creating brand-new games for the system, many of which limited physical releases as well.
It’ll still be a while until we actually get to play the full version of Morrowind on the SEGA Dreamcast, but it’s a fascinating look at just what is actually possible on the hardware. Time to show Dagoth-Ur who’s boss again.
