OpenMW 0.50.0 for Morrowind has a first Release Candidate with gamepad support and a gamepad UI

An exciting release for the Morrowind game engine OpenMW is coming, with the first Release Candidate out for version 0.50.0 bringing some big changes. This free and open source cross-platform game engine is the best way to play Morrowind, and it's about to get even better!

One major change coming is much improved gamepad support, along with a new optional gamepad-tailored interface you can enable in their launcher. They also said that "even if you’re a hard-boiled mouse and keyboard enthusiast, you should appreciate the variety of UI fixes and game mechanics fixes coming with this update, as well as the steps made towards dehardcoding combat".

Right now this RC release is only meant for testers to try and break it, and report any issues ready for the final release for everyone. They said that "continuing your existing playthroughs should be safe, but keep in mind that mods that work extensively with UI layout files must be updated to be compatible with the UI changes". Additionally for modders that mods that use "OpenMW-Lua may also need to be updated — so double-check if your setup is up to speed".

Save formats haven't changed since the previous release, so you should be able to swap between for testing but they still don't recommend it until they find and fix some issues as they come up.

This is exciting, when OpenMW 0.50.0 is out, it will make playing it on handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally even better.

More in the news post.

I'll be adding a proper OpenMW guide to our Tips & Guides section this week.