Can’t speak for the older ones because… well, they’re not before my time, I was an avid PC gamer back then, but I somehow missed them (no Internet yet, and maybe they weren’t sold where I live?)… but Morrowind was great. Janky and broken as all fuck, but great. Fantastic setting, great magic system where you could make your own spells, terrible but useable skill system, no handholding whatsoever (the game doesn’t give a flying fuck if you don’t know what a “foyada” is even if such knowledge is essential to find your way around, and that’s great, modern games almost play themselves, so what even is the point of playing, then?), and you could wear mismatched pauldrons. Haven’t found a game that topped that yet. Way too many cliff racers, sure, but still, it was a fantastic game.

Then Bethesda got downhill from there. Modders saved TES IV and V and Bethesda’s Fallouts, but not even them could do anything for Starfield.