Morrowind modders continue to astound, add object physics with 'pure lua' to a 23-year old game

Lua Physics -- OpenMW - YouTube

Morrowind might be 23 years old, but that's not stopping its cult coterie of modders and whizzkids from updating it. One thankful addition that makes a lot of this possible are script extenders, which themselves open whole new avenues of scripting language, with which people can't seem to stop working marvels.

It's all very simple—as modder MaxYari describes it, a rudimentary "simple and naive physics engine in pure lua" that produces "Half-Life 1 level of physics, maybe a bit better", but it's still magnificent to behold. Seeing bottles clink around, even shattering, in Vvardenfell is enough to make me feel like I've been hucked into another universe where Bethesda figured out its famous physics shenanigans a few years early.

In terms of what the mod can actually do, it "enables physics on all of the items in the game (things you can put in your inventory). You can drag them around, throw them and break bottles. But be warned—messing around with someone's property too much will not be tolerated (if noticed, which depends on your sneak skill, proximity and sheer luck)."

I can't help but remember the age-old Skyrim basket trick, and be a little sad that it's not replicable here—who knows, though. Maybe if you bring your own? I'd be surprised (but not too surprised) if MaxYari's programmed the kind of sight-lines that made such a trick possible in Skyrim, though.

The mod does have two other limitations, as well—ranged attacks won't impact objects, and NPCs will ghost through stationary objects as though they were intangible. Still, it's mighty impressive to see bottles knocking about in a 23-year old game.

Like most great modders, MaxYari's keen for other bright minds to go ahead and use it for their own projects: "Apart from playing around with physics items—the primary purpose of this mod is to expose a set of methods that other developers can use to implement physics-based mods."

For now, you can just use OpenMWLuaPhysics to run roughshod over some poor shopkeeper's inventory as MaxYari has. The merchant class of Vvardenfell never stood a chance.

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Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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