OpenMW is an open-source open-world RPG game engine that supports playing Morrowind by Bethesda Softworks. You need to own the game for OpenMW to play Morrowind.
This is a one-off version of OpenMW intended to provide a better experience for controller players.
None of this is my work. I took the existing work of https://gitlab.com/grablair/openmw/-/commits/gui-gamepad-controls-1/ and the current master branch of https://gitlab.com/OpenMW/openmw as of 10/28/23 and merged them. (grablair's branch had not been merged with OpenMW's master branch in almost 2 years, and I wanted the last 2 years of OpenMw's updates plus better controller support.) I am not planning on keeping this up to date with OpenMW's master branch, but you're welcome to fork this and do so yourself. Shouldn't be too difficult to keep up to date, at least until they make major changes to the UI, which they probably won't anytime soon, but you never know.
I'm not super familiar with the history of the controller support issue (see https://gitlab.com/OpenMW/openmw/-/issues/3740 for more information) but my brief, very incomplete understanding is that it has been worked on here and there by independent developers who wanted a better controller experience for themselves, but it isn't being worked on by any of the regular contributors to OpenMW, and probably never will be, since they and most of their audience are primarily keyboard and mouse players.
The added controller support is also incomplete and does not work for all user interfaces and may have bugs. (I'm not planning on extending the controller support myself, I don't have the skills or background with the project to do so.) But, it works for a lot of things and it's better than nothing. This may serve as a jumping-off point for other developers who want to work on a more updated version (at least relative to the main project) of improved controller support for OpenMW.
OpenMW also comes with OpenMW-CS, a replacement for Bethesda's Construction Set.
- Version: 0.49.0
- License: GPLv3 (see LICENSE for more information)
- Website: https://www.openmw.org
- IRC: #openmw on irc.libera.chat
- Discord: https://discord.gg/bWuqq2e
Font Licenses:
- DejaVuLGCSansMono.ttf: custom (see files/data/fonts/DejaVuFontLicense.txt for more information)
- DemonicLetters.ttf: SIL Open Font License (see files/data/fonts/DemonicLettersFontLicense.txt for more information)
- MysticCards.ttf: SIL Open Font License (see files/data/fonts/MysticCardsFontLicense.txt for more information)
The main quests in Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon are all completable. Some issues with side quests are to be expected (but rare). Check the bug tracker for a list of issues we need to resolve before the "1.0" release. Even before the "1.0" release however, OpenMW boasts some new features, such as improved graphics and user interfaces.
Pre-existing modifications created for the original Morrowind engine can be hit-and-miss. The OpenMW script compiler performs more thorough error-checking than Morrowind does, meaning that a mod created for Morrowind may not necessarily run in OpenMW. Some mods also rely on quirky behaviour or engine bugs in order to work. We are considering such compatibility issues on a case-by-case basis - in some cases adding a workaround to OpenMW may be feasible, in other cases fixing the mod will be the only option. If you know of any mods that work or don't work, feel free to add them to the Mod status wiki page.
- Official forums
- Installation instructions
- Build from source
- Testing the game
- How to contribute
- Report a bug - read the guidelines before submitting your first bug!
- Known issues
The data path tells OpenMW where to find your Morrowind files. If you run the launcher, OpenMW should be able to pick up the location of these files on its own, if both Morrowind and OpenMW are installed properly (installing Morrowind under WINE is considered a proper install).
Syntax: openmw <options>
Allowed options:
--help print help message
--version print version information and quit
--data arg (=data) set data directories (later directories
have higher priority)
--data-local arg set local data directory (highest
priority)
--fallback-archive arg (=fallback-archive)
set fallback BSA archives (later
archives have higher priority)
--resources arg (=resources) set resources directory
--start arg set initial cell
--content arg content file(s): esm/esp, or
omwgame/omwaddon
--no-sound [=arg(=1)] (=0) disable all sounds
--script-verbose [=arg(=1)] (=0) verbose script output
--script-all [=arg(=1)] (=0) compile all scripts (excluding dialogue
scripts) at startup
--script-all-dialogue [=arg(=1)] (=0) compile all dialogue scripts at startup
--script-console [=arg(=1)] (=0) enable console-only script
functionality
--script-run arg select a file containing a list of
console commands that is executed on
startup
--script-warn [=arg(=1)] (=1) handling of warnings when compiling
scripts
0 - ignore warning
1 - show warning but consider script as
correctly compiled anyway
2 - treat warnings as errors
--script-blacklist arg ignore the specified script (if the use
of the blacklist is enabled)
--script-blacklist-use [=arg(=1)] (=1)
enable script blacklisting
--load-savegame arg load a save game file on game startup
(specify an absolute filename or a
filename relative to the current
working directory)
--skip-menu [=arg(=1)] (=0) skip main menu on game startup
--new-game [=arg(=1)] (=0) run new game sequence (ignored if
skip-menu=0)
--encoding arg (=win1252) Character encoding used in OpenMW game
messages:
win1250 - Central and Eastern European
such as Polish, Czech, Slovak,
Hungarian, Slovene, Bosnian, Croatian,
Serbian (Latin script), Romanian and
Albanian languages
win1251 - Cyrillic alphabet such as
Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian Cyrillic
and other languages
win1252 - Western European (Latin)
alphabet, used by default
--fallback arg fallback values
--no-grab Don't grab mouse cursor
--export-fonts [=arg(=1)] (=0) Export Morrowind .fnt fonts to PNG
image and XML file in current directory
--activate-dist arg (=-1) activation distance override
--random-seed arg (=<impl defined>) seed value for random number generator