Morrowind Modders Have Created A More Authentic Western Cyrodill

There isn’t a community in gaming more ambitious and driven than the Elder Scrolls modding community. There are over 12,000 mods for The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, a game released in 2002. There is a constant stream of noteworthy projects flowing from these communities, including a recent creation by the modding collective Project Tamriel that adds the western portion of Cyrodill to Morrowind (nice spot, PC Gamer).

The objective of Project Tamriel is to add every province of Tamriel to Morrowind, which, as you can imagine, is a Herculean task. Project Tamriel’s sister project is Tamriel Rebuilt, a modding project that aims to expand Morrowind beyond Vvardenfell. This ambitious project is still years from a final release, but large parts of the province are now playable thanks to the hard work of the volunteer team.

Return to Anvil

The first release of Project Cyrodill (the Cyrodill branch of Project Tamriel) is Abecean Shores, a recreation of the western regions of Cyrodill, including the town of Anvil. This specific section of Tamriel has been featured in both Oblivion and Elder Scrolls Online, but unlike those adaptations, Abecean Shores renders parts of the Gold Coast and Colovian Highlands in Bethesda’s original vision for the region, a dense jungle.

While sources in Morrowind describe Cyrodill as a jungle, by the time Oblivion released, Bethesda had reworked the region into more of a medieval European kind of aesthetic. This retcon was likely performed by Bethesda to give Oblivion’s setting a more civilised and familiar feel, possibly to differentiate it from the wilder environments of Morrowind.

I’ll not confuse you with the finer details of the series’ complex multiversal lore, but the popular theory is that Tiber Septim (Talos) cleared the jungles of Cyrodill using his newfound deific powers to pave the way for the Septim Empire. The “controversy” surrounding Cyrodill’s environments was referenced in The Gold Road expansion for Elder Scrolls Online, which features a cult of Bosmer that summons a jungle near Skingrad.

Abecean Shores, which released on December 22, features “over 160 quests” including quest lines for the Mages, Fighters and Thieves Guilds and two new factions: The Kingdom of Anvil and the Itinerant Priests. The project’s map is about half the size of Vvardenfell, the base setting of Morrowind. That’s quite impressive – and it can be downloaded on Nexus Mods.

In The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind from Bethesda, you’ll take on the role of a prisoner who must uncover the truth of strange visions and defeat a menacing threat. Morrowind is a vast open world and the game received almost universal acclaim.