The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind is one of those games about which a thousand stories can be written. Each of us has had our very own experiences on the island of Vvardenfell: the annoying cliff runner that constantly follows us and pokes us in the back, or the first wandering around in Vivec.
But the game has a much more adventurous side: Did you know that Morrowind was messing with your system on the original Xbox without you realizing it? Here’s what Elder Scrolls guru Todd Howard revealed himself in the new installment of the Official Xbox Podcast, we’ve already fast-forwarded for you:
link to YouTube content
A reboot of the console – and nobody notices
The Xbox did more than break a sweat at Morrowind. It was even pushed to the brink of collapse, and that’s not even an exaggeration from a technical point of view: Because the amount of game data hardly fit into the internal console memory, which is why a so-called Overflow
and there was a risk of falling.
Morrowind reacted confidently, without further ado put on his chief’s hat and forced the console to restart
Moment!
you might call now. How come I’ve never been kicked out of the game?
Glad you asked! The technical trick: Morrowind concealed the reboot with a loading screen. As a result, you never noticed anything about it and could simply continue playing after the (remarkably long) loading process had ended. In truth, your Xbox has had a complete reboot.
There were great tricks that us [die Xbox] has taught. My favorite trick in Morrowind is being able to restart the original Xbox when it’s running low on disk space without the user noticing. For example, you can boot up a screen. When loading Morrowind, there is sometimes a very long loading time. This is us restarting the Xbox. That was like an Ave Maria.
Todd Howard, Game Director bei Bethesda
Do you find this story entertaining? Then we have good news for you, because Oblivion was also known for a technical curiosity that inevitably destroyed your entire save and was once dubbed by Dimi as the worst bug of all time.
Did you already know about Morrowind’s double life? Do you know of other games that have done exciting or funny things with the hardware? Then write us in the comments!