Think fast, hotshot: after spending three years lovingly crafting July's 0.49 update, which dramatically buffed up its capacity to handle all-powerful lua modding, the crew at OpenMW have already turned around and put out their first candidate for its 0.50 release. In mod project timelines, this is basically a nanosecond turnaround.
If you're not familiar, OpenMW is an open-source engine reimplementation for The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind that lets you run it on modern Windows, Linux, and macOS with a minimum of fuss and at modern resolutions. It's undoubtedly my go-to way to play these days, especially now this 0.50 release candidate has made the game way easier to play on a gamepad.
Don't tell anyone, but my first exposure to Morrowind was its original Xbox version, with its uncharismatic sans-serif fonts and its tendency to slyly reboot your entire console to cope with its strict RAM limits. I still have nostalgia for its gamepad iteration and, hell, I just like being able to kick back on my sofa or play things easily on my Steam Deck.
"Despite the nice round number, 0.50.0 is a focused release," writes OpenMW's capo (that's their name, not their rank), "its core highlight is the improved gamepad support and optional gamepad-tailored UI (which you can enable in the launcher)." Alongside the gamepad additions, 0.50 also brings a "variety of UI fixes and game mechanics fixes" that even "a hard-boiled mouse and keyboard enthusiast" should appreciate.
"Our intention for the [release candidate] period is to have you break it—run into any uncaught crashes, freezes, regressions, or other unexpected issues, and report them to us on our issue tracker," says the team. "You may also suggest improvements to the gamepad UI, and some of your ideas may end up in the final release."
I've mucked around a little with OpenMW 0.50 RC1 and I'm already impressed. The UI—which still hews closer to Morrowind's PC UI than its Xbox variant—is pretty easy to navigate at the tap of a bumper or the swish of a stick, and the simple act of actually getting around Vvardenfell seems easier on a controller than ever before. I've tried using a gamepad with OpenMW before, alongside projects like Deckwind, but it's never felt this natural.
It ain't perfect, of course, and nor would you expect it to be from a release candidate. Typing in your name at the game's start still requires you to use a physical keyboard (or your Steam overlay keeb), and certain elements of the gamepad-centric UI obscure other parts of the game's HUD. Honestly, though? These are quibbles, and I'm very excited to dump a few hundred hours into OpenMW's 0.50 release on my Deck when the team puts out the full version.
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