Was it spending half an hour stalking a strange dude you just met in a tiny bogtown that somehow serves as a marshy, weird Ellis Island where the only things of note are a lighthouse, a general store, and an insectoid Trailways station? Maybe the man falling out of the sky. What’s your first memory of Morrowind? Is it the strange blue-grey-green face of Jiub, his eye piercing and red, standing over you shirtless, offering up the briefest moment of friendship? Or is it Ergalla, drilling you about your astrological sign, and in that moment impressing upon you that the fault is extremely fucking in our stars-because in Tamriel, The Stars literally affect genetics.

And, descending from on high like the great Dagoth Ur, himself Todd Howard was here to set us free the only way he could: by destroying Morrowind. We, the Outlanders, made Morrowind our home so thoroughly that it became our prison. Even with the lore destroying much of what we knew, the land of mushroom spires and scrib jelly completed the colonial project through our explorations. It sure did feel like a punch in the dick, once the initial “WE’RE GOING BACK, BABY!” wore off. This is the desolation that comes as a warning-a dessicated, decomposed body hung up on a signpost. Oh sure, we got to see some of the architecture we’d missed in stunning 1080p, even pick up some Bonemold armor, and visit the ruins of Moonmoth. Once the initial nostalgia wore off, it kinda felt like a punch in the dick, didn’t it? Remember when Skyrim added the DLC that promised to take us to Solstheim, that island situated north of Vvardenfell, where Imperial, Nord, and Dunmer all “shared” the land with werewolves in the Bloodmoon expansion to Morrowind? We can never get back what we actually want. We’ve all want a grand Return to Morrowind. It’s Morrowind that we recognize as the True Experience. And while Skyrim may have been ported to everything imaginable, and will likely continue to be ported well into the future, it’s Morrowind that we clamor for. That’s a long time for a game to hold onto the popular imagination. On May 23 Skyrim became as old as The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was when Skyrim was released.

Skyrim just in time