Morrowind lead explains origin behind the third Elder Scrolls RPG’s journal and how his initial concepts could’ve “been the foundation of something cool” – but “never got made and shouldn’t have been made”

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Morrowind’s journal system was a significant improvement over the one in the earlier Elder Scrolls game, Daggerfall. However, according to lead designer Ken Rolston, they had ideas that could have made it even better.

In a recent documentary about Morrowind by Filmdeg Miniatures, designer Ken Rolston revealed he had many ideas for the game that didn’t make it into the final version. He specifically mentioned the journal, which could have been much more extensive if one of his ambitious – but ultimately flawed – concepts had been developed.

Rolston explains he envisioned a highly interactive experience, where every important word would be a link, allowing players to easily navigate and revisit any part of the conversations. He admits it would have been a massive undertaking – the game has a huge amount of text – but still would have been incredible, and something players would have really enjoyed, even today.

Rolston explains that users could explore all the game’s content and easily find information to ask about, similar to an in-game encyclopedia or even an interactive story. However, modern tools like AI could improve this process. AI could help developers link important keywords to characters and identify which in-game factors are most relevant, making information even more accessible.

So, Rolston basically said everything *could* have been amazing, but this whole extra feature ended up being totally hidden and didn’t really fit into the game. He’s talking about a weird linking thing in the journal from the original Morrowind. He doesn’t know how the developers eventually dealt with it, but he jokes they probably just hoped players would ignore it completely – like a cow looking at a plane and just not understanding what it is!

It would be fascinating to see how the ideas of Rolston could have been implemented in a classic RPG like Morrowind. The game was already incredibly influential, especially considering its fantastic humor – which, surprisingly, Bethesda’s Todd Howard once claimed wasn’t suitable for games.

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2025-09-16 19:39