Morrowind's factions actually had consequences and Skyrim forgot how to do that

[EbonyWarrior]

I've been replaying Morrowind after years of Skyrim and I just realized how much the faction systems diverged. In Morrowind, joining House Hlaalu locked you out of Redoran and Telvanni. You could literally sabotage rival houses, steal their quests, make enemies who would recognize you and refuse to work with you later. It felt like actual politics.

Skyrim's Civil War questline lets you join one side and then... nothing really changes except some guards are hostile and a few NPCs get grumpy. You can still do Thieves Guild stuff as a Stormcloak. You can still work for the Dawnguard. The factions feel like separate career paths instead of actual ideologies with weight.

Even the Thieves Guild in Morrowind had that Camonna Tong rivalry where you'd actively be working against another faction's interests. Skyrim's Thieves Guild is just... steal things, pay Delvin and Vex, done. No real opposition, no reason to care about the lore beyond the Skeleton Key questline.

I get that Skyrim streamlined a lot for accessibility and it works for what the game is trying to do. But man, I miss when joining a faction actually meant something politically. When your choices had teeth.

 

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

The Civil War thing is the most frustrating example imo. Like, you'd think joining the Stormcloaks would mean the Empire actually hunts you, or vice versa - that there'd be real consequences beyond "some guards aggro." Instead it's just a quest you complete and then life goes on. Compare that to Morrowind where siding with House Hlaalu meant you're permanently locked out of two entire questlines and those house members will straight up refuse to talk to you. That's weight.

That said, I think the Thieves Guild complaint is a bit unfair? The rivalry with the Dawnguard doesn't exist in the base game, sure, but the whole point of that questline is you're basically rebuilding the guild from nothing after Mercer gutted it. You're not fighting an active rival faction - you're just trying to make the guild matter again. Morrowind had the Camonna Tong as an existing power you had to navigate around, which is a different flavor. Still, yeah, it would've been cool if the Thieves Guild questline had you actively sabotaging some other criminal organization instead of just doing jobs for Brynjolf.

I think the core issue is Skyrim's design philosophy just doesn't support hard faction locks the way Morrowind's did. Skyrim wants you to be able to experience most of the game's content in one playthrough, and locking you out of entire questlines based on a faction choice doesn't fit that. Doesn't mean it's better design - just different priorities. But you're right that it loses something in the translation.