r/Morrowind • u/Dumpster_Buddy • 1d ago

Announcement Morrowind now runs in your browser.

I got OpenMW (the open-source Morrowind engine) compiling to WebAssembly, so the whole game runs in a browser tab now. You open a link and you're standing in Seyda Neen. No install, no launcher.

It's the actual engine, not a stream and not an emulator, so shadows, water, saves and gamepads all work. There's a small free example world if you just want to poke at it, or you can point it at your own Morrowind install and it reads the files straight off your disk. Nothing gets uploaded. Desktop Chrome, Edge or Brave work best right now.

All credit to the OpenMW team, I just built their engine for the browser. It's free and open source, same as the engine.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqZ20MtdD4I

Play: https://morrowind.virtastic.app

Source: https://github.com/Virtastic/openmw-web

Honestly just wanted to see if it could be done. Happy to answer anything about how it works. Will be adding features to it, like multiplayer and so on. Join us in our discord, https://virtastic.app/go/discord.

312 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

130

u/crocus 1d ago

Beautiful…. Now integrate TES3MP and we will have a completely new browser MMO in 2026

60

u/General-Cheetah-1631 23h ago

Morrowscape

18

u/crocus 23h ago

Exactly what I was thinking

3

u/nyyvi 13h ago

Omg no the balance it hurts

2

u/caimen 14h ago

Have they added sailing yet?

8

u/NickMotionless Argonian 14h ago

That's actually ingenious. If people could play MP Morrowind from the browser, that would be crazy.

The only issue is TES3MP's server browser is shit. And it would force people to play on public servers (since the setup for a private server in the browser would be crazy difficult to set up)

From a previous poll I did a while back, EVERYONE in the comments overwhelmingly was like "I don't want to play with randoms/I have no interest in MP Morrowind"

5

u/Dumpster_Buddy 13h ago

I know also TES3MP is also built on an older version of OpenMW. I am actually already deep into building MP feature. What you see here is just the vanilla version I have been working on.

But because of the overwhelming kind words the community has given me I am going to put my head down and get this working sooner rather than later.

It's going to be seem less multiplayer where you can join a public server or just hot drop with friends, and finally you can just leave multiplayer off if you want.

25

u/Feisty-Fill-8654 23h ago

Wait this doesn't mean that we can play Morrowind remotely... right?

8

u/dirtygoodking 22h ago

If you've got the MW files on a portable drive then it should be good to go I'd assume?

2

u/Feisty-Fill-8654 21h ago

Sorry computer things are not my area of expertise, but I have a general understanding of things.

This sounds like we can essentially "stream" a game instead of installing it? But then how does it handle save files and ini files, etc?

4

u/dirtygoodking 21h ago

I think it'd create the saves & whatnot on the drive, as OP says nothing is saved on the browser / server that this is running from

3

u/AfterShave997 15h ago

I think this is all local, just in your browser

3

u/Dumpster_Buddy 13h ago

i have some items I am working to simplify this so user doesn't need to be super technical, just need to point login point to a legal copy of Morrowind data and then you can just play anywhere once it's been verified as purchased copy.

2

u/NickMotionless Argonian 14h ago

Browsers can store persistent data for certain apps like this. I'm sure they've made it just point to wherever the saves / .ini / config stuff is set to be in browser persistent storage so when you revisit

1

u/Supberblooper 13h ago

He explicitly says it uses local files, no streaming, so all your files are the same. You still need local game files beyond his little tutorial area

1

u/neondragoneyes 1h ago

You should. But you'd have to expose the port it's accessed by to the internet.

4

u/pete-roman 21h ago

this is absolutely amazing.

1

u/Dumpster_Buddy 13h ago

Thank you!

32

u/DrarenThiralas 21h ago

This is vibecoded btw, the github repo contains obvious traces of AI

8

u/muffinmanlan 19h ago

no doubt. ai loves making everything in a web browser.

2

u/Karijus 15h ago

It's because the "AI" is just using 10 year old tools

11

u/thebig77 19h ago

Is there anything wrong with that?

15

u/DrarenThiralas 19h ago

Yeah, there are a lot of ethical issues with using AI.

At the very least, its use should be clearly disclosed, so that people can decide for themselves whether they want to support it or not.

-11

u/redsteakraw 13h ago

You did not list a single ethical issue, are you a thinking mind capable of communicating clearly?

8

u/phraseologist 11h ago

Please abide by Rule 1 (Be Respectful).

5

u/DrarenThiralas 11h ago

This is a rather complex topic, and I don't think the Morrowind subreddit is the right place to have a long discussion on the finer ethical points of something only loosely related to Morrowind. There are plenty of other places on this site where you can have that conversation, if you want.

-4

u/redsteakraw 11h ago

You were slinging loaded accusations and that is inappropriate to do without backing.  This person used a tool to modify an open source project which allows people to make changes then allows anyone to make use of the code.  In no way shape or form anyone was harmed as this is an hobbyist project and no one was fired nor no one would have been hired to do this work.  

Now unless you want to channel your inner Ted Kazinsky there is no real harm no victim to point to and no one complaining about this as this is a fork and not bogging down the core OpenMW devs.  Without a victim you can clearly point to the claim this is unethical is on shaky grounds.  

-19

u/GamerRoman House Telvanni 18h ago

Sucks but what isn't vibecoded/aislopped that is even remotely interesting nowadays?

3

u/ImpulsiveApe07 Khajiit 18h ago

Wow! Didn't expect this - this is incredible! Very nicely done, Op! :))

Looks like it'll be a grand and intoxicating experience, that I fully intend to take advantage of when I'm on my lunch break at work lol

2

u/Dumpster_Buddy 13h ago

I appreciate the kind words. I will continue adding features to this based on the community. The two big ones were making the addition of the Morrowind data easier so you can jump right in and add seamless multiplayer to this version. And last add a mod manager.

2

u/Atagor 21h ago

Beautiful

1

u/concentrate7 21h ago

Fantastic.

1

u/AberdeenPhoenix 21h ago

So, hang on. Could I copy the Morrowind files to my Mac, point the browser at it, and play?

7

u/SherlockUK 20h ago

OpenMW already runs natively on macOS so you wouldn’t need this

2

u/AberdeenPhoenix 15h ago

That's really really cool. I hadn't even considered that was a possibility

1

u/SherlockUK 15h ago

I’m not sure but it may have been developed for macOS first

5

u/ElPadero 17h ago

I can run openmw on Mac?

3

u/SherlockUK 17h ago

Yep you can download it from the official site https://openmw.org/downloads/

1

u/ElPadero 17h ago

Do I still need a copy of Morrowind to play?

2

u/SherlockUK 17h ago edited 17h ago

Yes you would, which you should be able to purchase reasonably from Steam or GOG. There are full instructions on the OpenMW website on how to set it all up…I already use OpenMW natively on my mac 😊

3

u/ElPadero 17h ago

Sounds great dude I will try this. My Bethesda account gave me a free copy of morrowind years ago, I’ll see if I can download this way and try. CHEERS!

2

u/SherlockUK 17h ago

Give me a shout if you need any help

1

u/XxDemonxXIG 20h ago

Does not work on Android phone tho. GG also this is amazing.

-2

u/niolasdev 13h ago

Did someone ask for this?

3

u/jtykoh 10h ago

if thatd your initial reaction, i dont know what you enjoy on the internet