Morrowind might be released as a retro VR mod for Quest 2
The team that ported classic games like Half-Life to Meta Quest 2 might try their hand at a Morrowind VR port next.
Doom 1-3, Quake 1-3, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and most recently Star Wars: Jedi Knight II. Team Beef has already released many 2D classics for Meta Quest 2 and Pico 4, adapting them to the medium's peculiarities with great attention to detail.
This past weekend, Team Beef conducted a poll of Patreon supporters to see what project they should tackle next. The results, released on Monday, are:
- Morrowind: 40.38 percent (VR suitability: A | difficulty: D)
- Quake 4: 35.34 percent (VR Suitability: A | Difficulty: A)
- Star Wars Battlefront II: 34.77 percent (VR suitability: A | difficulty: B)
The remaining two dozen titles received significantly less approval.
Team Beef: The decision has not yet been made
On Patreon, Team Beef acknowledges the choice of these three titles. It will take the first steps for all three projects. This includes checking more deeply whether the games are suitable for a VR port. Then, the actual work begins. For Morrowind, the team considers OpenMW, an open-source engine that replicates Morrowind's graphics engine and extends its capabilities.
"In the case of OpenMW we will be reaching out to their team to announce our intentions and found out more about what is being worked on. We are aware that there is a current PCVR branch that is slowly being merged into the main thread and an Android build that was abandoned last November. The VR branch obviously has some overlap to what we are doing," Team Beef writes on its Patreon page.
"We need to ensure there is not already a standalone VR release planned so we are not stepping on the main team's toes. Additionally we want to double check the 'agreement' they have with Bethesda to ensure a standalone VR port is not going to get the project as a whole, or us, in hot water."
Morrowind VR: An ambitious project
At the same time, Team Beef aims to start work on Quake 4, as that game would be relatively easy to port. A potential Star Wars: Battlefront II port requires more research.
The team estimates that a VR port of Morrowind for standalone VR headsets will be rather difficult. The good news is that there is already a PC VR version that even supports multiplayer. Team Beef and the OpenMW team could therefore exchange experience.
If Morrowind VR gets off the ground, it could fill the RPG hole in Meta's game lineup. Meta has been appealing to studios to develop more role-playing games for the VR platform for years. Surveys reveal a high interest in such titles as well as story-heavy titles.
Image: Meta
Morrowind VR could deliver for standalone VR platforms what Skyrim VR brought to PC VR: a huge role-playing world that keeps you entertained for hundreds of hours. By moving to OpenXR, Morrowind VR, as well as other projects from the team, could also appear for Pico 4 (review) and other upcoming VR headsets like HTC Vive XR Elite (info).
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