Morrowind's weapon variety actually makes Skyrim's look embarrassing

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

I just finished a Redoran playthrough in OpenMW and I'm genuinely shocked how many different weapon types Morrowind throws at you compared to Skyrim. Like, Skyrim has swords, axes, maces, daggers, bows, and... that's basically it. Everything else is a mod.

But Morrowind? You've got shortswords, longswords, claymores, katanas, dai-katai, spears, halberds, axes, maces, staves, crossbows, throwing stars, throwing knives. And they actually feel different to use because of the hit chance system. A spear isn't just "slightly longer sword," it's a completely different combat approach.

The weird part is Skyrim came out 10 years later and somehow had fewer weapon types. I get that they wanted to streamline things, but it feels like a step backward. Even the DLC weapons in Skyrim don't really add much variety - they're mostly just reskins with different damage values.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I just romanticizing the old game? Because I'm genuinely considering modding Skyrim to add more weapon variety now and I'm not even sure where to start.

 

[EbonyWarrior]

You're not romanticizing it - Morrowind genuinely had more weapon variety, and it's one of those things I miss about it. The hit chance system made every weapon class feel tactically distinct in a way Skyrim's just... doesn't. A spear actually played different from a sword because you weren't guaranteed to connect, which changed how you approached combat. Skyrim flattened that out in favor of "hit what you swing at" which is smoother but way less interesting build-wise.

That said, I think Skyrim made the tradeoff deliberately. Morrowind's combat felt clunky to a lot of people - all those missed swings when you had decent stats - and Skyrim wanted to make melee feel more responsive and immediate. They succeeded at that, but yeah, you lose the weapon identity in the process. A greatsword and a claymore in Morrowind had totally different gameplay. In Skyrim they're basically the same thing with slightly different models.

If you want to mod it, there are a few approaches. You could grab something like Xtended Crossbow Pack or similar (there are definitely mods that add spears and halberds back in), or go full overhaul with something like Ordinator paired with a weapon variety mod - Ordinator's perks actually make different weapon types feel meaningfully different in a way vanilla Skyrim doesn't. The perk trees for different weapons are way more fleshed out. But fair warning: adding new weapon types to Skyrim feels clunkier than it did in Morrowind because the game's animations and engine weren't really built around it the way Morrowind's was.

Honestly if weapon variety is what you're chasing, you might just keep bouncing between Morrowind and modded Skyrim. They scratch different itches.