Brutal: Morrowind restarted the original Xbox during loads… and nobody noticed

A historical anecdote comes to light: Morrowind used invisible restarts on the original Xbox.

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The first Xbox had a life full of curious stories, but few as striking as this one. An anecdote told by Todd Howard years ago has resurfaced thanks to the community, and confirms something that seems almost impossible today: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind would discreetly restart the console during certain loading screens to recover memory without the player noticing.

The detail was verified by Modern Vintage Gamer, who analyzed the game’s behavior and confirmed that a silent system restart would indeed occur. Back in the day, without day-one patches or constant updates, developers would improvise creative solutions to get ambitious projects running on very limited hardware.

An extreme solution for very tight hardware

The community has taken advantage of the anecdote to comment on the contrast with modern development. Some users recall that teams were smaller, production time was shorter, and technical tricks were much riskier. For many, it’s an example of how far studios would go to get a demanding game like Morrowind running on the 2001 console.

A debate has also opened up about how the arrival of constant updates has changed the industry. Before, a flaw on the disc meant the game was broken for good; now, studios have patches and post-launch improvements, reducing the need for such drastic solutions as restarting a console without warning the user.

Regardless of opinions, what’s clear is that Morrowind left its mark both for its ambition and for the almost impossible techniques that made it a reality on the original Xbox. A curiosity that reminds us of just how different game development was two decades ago.