YouTuber scientist reveals the secret lie at the heart of Morrowind: Its rivers aren’t rivers at all

In my career with this illustrious magazine, I have covered my love of Morrowind extensively and exhaustingly. It's the best. The best game from Bethesda and perhaps the best videogame. Ever.

Or was it?

A YouTuber named Any Austin conducted a damning investigation that revealed a secret illness at the heart of Morrowind: The game's river is a lie. They're actually sloughs. They're kind of. They're not. Todd Howard has done it again.

Any Austin describes in disconcerting details how the rivers of Morrowind’s isle of Vvardenfell lack many of the characteristics that make them rivers. They are wet, sure, but what else? They don't have that flow you associate with the Niles, Amazons and Mississippis. They're like long, useless, thin lakes, rather than real rivers. Or sloughs. These are apparently called sloughs.

It's worth watching this video in its entirety to see how a real person applies actual hydrology to explain the geographically impossible choices that level designers made in the early 2000s. Any Austin comes perilously near to achieving a grand, unified, theory of Morrowind’s not-rivers. It all makes logical. The tectonics of the Red Mountain in Vvardenfell, case studies that are similar to Morrowind waterways, and he even pulls out a 1983 paper to support his argument. Nothing has ever sloughed more than Morrowind sloughs. Not even Slough.

Austin's deconstruction of his argument after a carefully constructed argument for 10 minutes is impressive. Vvardenfell’s skinny puddles, while not rivers, are not sloughs, either. There are complex historical and hydrological factors that I will not spoil. They're just... there. They're just elongated pools of water that have no reason to exist.

It's funny, if I may say so, and it's no doubt a thousand more hours of work and analysis that any Bethesda level designer thought anyone would put into their work two decades ago. Morrowind has a magic, in my opinion. The third Elder Scrolls, unlike the games that came after it, was genuinely interested and inviting you to be part of its lore. I think this is a major reason why people are still so obsessed with it. It's also the reason that people make hydrological analysis videos, for example. This is not only a sign of quality, but also a sign of legacy. Starfield never could.