The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Morrowind begins with the player's character, having been imprisoned, arriving in Morrowind by boat to be pardoned. A tutorial depicting the prisoner's release moves the player through the process of character creation. The player is successively asked questions by a fellow prisoner, an officer, and a bureaucrat as the player is registered as a free citizen; choosing, in the process, the player character's name, race, gender, class, and birthsign. These affect the player's starting attributes, skills, and abilities. The player determines their class in one of three ways: picking from a class list, generating a class via questions, or creating a custom class themselves.

The player character's proficiency with a skill is increased through practice, training, and study. Practice involves performing the specific actions associated with a given skill, which gradually raises the character's proficiency in that skill. Raising weapon skills requires striking an enemy with the appropriate weapon; raising armor skills requires being struck while wearing the appropriate type of armor; etc. Training involves paying money to non-player characters (NPCs) in exchange for immediate proficiency increases in that skill.

While Morrowind contains many quests and storylines, the central plot revolves around the Tribunal, a triumvirate of god-like beings ruling over Morrowind and their struggle against a former ally: the demigod Dagoth Ur and his Sixth House – a cult of followers stretching out from Red Mountain, the volcanic center of Vvardenfell. Dagoth Ur has used the Heart of Lorkhan, an artifact of great power, to make himself immortal and now seeks to drive the Imperial Legion occupiers from Morrowind using his network of spies, as well as Akulakhan, an enormous mechanical golem powered by the Heart of Lorkhan.

Morrowind's events take place in the 427th year of the Third Era, 22 years after the events of the previous game. After a storm and a strange dream vision, the player character begins in a town called Seyda Neen. Fresh off a boat from a mainland prison, they have been freed by the string-pulling of the current ruler of the Tamrielic Empire, Emperor Uriel Septim VII. The player is given the task of meeting Caius Cosades, a member of the Blades, a secret group of spies and agents working for the Emperor and the Empire.

A third title in The Elder Scrolls series was conceived during the development of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, though it was initially to be set in the Summerset Isles and called Tribunal. Following the release of Daggerfall, it was set up around an SVGA version of XnGine, which Bethesda later used in The Elder Scrolls Legends: Battlespire, and set in the province of Morrowind. The game was "much closer to Daggerfall in scope", encompassing the whole province of Morrowind, rather than the isle of Vvardenfell, and allowing the player to join all five Dunmer Great Houses. The blight was conceived as a dynamic force, progressively expanding and destroying cities in its wake.

It was finally decided that the scope of the original design was too grand given the technology current at the time. According to Ken Rolston, something was said approximating "We're not ready for it, we don't want to jump into this and fail". The project was put on hold in 1997, as Bethesda went on to develop The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard and Battlespire, though the project remained in the back of the developers' minds throughout this period.

European sales of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind reached almost 95,000 units by the end of June 2002, and rose to 200,000 copies by the end of September. By August 2005, the game had surpassed 4 million copies sold. In the United States, Morrowind's computer version sold 300,000 copies and earned $11.7 million by August 2006, after its release in April 2002. It was the country's 62nd best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. Combined sales of all Elder Scrolls computer games released between those dates had reached 990,000 units in the United States by August 2006.

Morrowind was the best-selling RPG for Xbox in 2002. It was one of the top 10 best-selling games on Xbox from May through October 2003, a full year after its initial launch. The only other game to accomplish this feat was Halo. By February 2006, Morrowind sold nearly a million units on the original Xbox, according to Peter Moore.