The Elder Scrolls is one of the most illustrious sagas in video game history, which is perhaps why Skyrim has been ported to everything short of a calculator over the last eight years. However, although Skyrim and its predecessor Oblivion are vast oceans containing a wealth of wonderfully intricate curios, their oft-overlooked older sibling Morrowind is a bottomless lake, its boundless depths plummeting into the territories of magic, secrecy, and the unknown.

Since Morrowind launched in 2002, players have been exploring its every nook and cranny, desperately seeking to unravel its most intimately hidden secrets. Perhaps the most accomplished of these Morrowind mystery hunters is Redditor OccupyTamriel, who has discovered countless hidden treasures buried in Morrowind's deepest recesses.

"I started playing Elder Scrolls when a very dear friend of mine told me about the series," OccupyTamriel tells me. "I needed a lot of time to get used to Morrowind - the sheer complexity of the world and the mechanics, the invisible per-attack dice roll, and just being lost and making no progress were extremely off-putting."

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Quake 2 is over two decades old and yet the id Software classic is one of my favourite games of this year, radically re-invented from a visual perspective thanks to the ray traced remastering from Nvidia's Lightspeed Studios (based on original work by Christophe Schied). It's one of the most impressive examples of hardware-accelerated RT and thanks to the new 1.2 patch released a few days ago, a phenomenal game now looks a whole lot better.

One might think that Nvidia would simply move on from the Quake 2 project and concentrate efforts on the ray traced upgrades for other titles that are being worked on behind the scenes, but the improvements to the 1.2 upgrade are quite profound - and the most noticeable change comes from upgraded art assets. While the original Quake 2 RTX launch used physically-based variants of Quake 2 XP textures, not all of them appeared to receive the same level of love and attention. A key focus for the 1.2 upgrade has been to re-assess many material properties and get them looking just right.

Metal and how it interacts with lighting has changed immensely. The original release had metalwork that appeared to lack much in the way of specular properties, so even with the hyper-realistic path traced lighting, the material looked more like stone than metal. It's all change in 1.2, with art changes that dramatically change and improve many scenes. There are micro-level improvements too. For example, the original remaster's shotgun shells in ammo boxes use matte materials that show little differentiation between the box material and the shells themselves. Version 1.2 now sees individual cartridges exhibit metallic sheen and emphasise the coloured metals on the jacket.

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To mark the end of the 2010s, we're celebrating 30 games that defined the last 10 years. You can find all the articles as they're published in the Games of the Decade archive, and read about the thinking behind it in an editor's blog.

There's something mournful about roaming the wilds of the Mojave, but maybe that's to be expected from a game that starts with you getting shot in the head. Like an irritated poltergeist, you're unleashed onto the wasteland to claim vengeance on those who wronged you. Or not, if you're like me - and make it your sole mission to find and save your would-be murderer Benny.

This is what Obsidian got so right about Fallout New Vegas. Somehow, the game's able to anticipate exactly the sort of decisions a player wants to make, often before they even know it themselves. I was constantly surprised at the options presented to me, which frequently veered into the ludicrous and naughty. Do I want to take Fisto for a spin before delivery? Yes, of course I do.

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To mark the end of the 2010s, we're celebrating 30 games that defined the last 10 years. You can find all the articles as they're published in the Games of the Decade archive, and read about the thinking behind it in an editor's blog.

The city of Dunwall is a paradox. As the pounding of inhuman footfalls echoes against the bruised sky, rodents of all sizes and colours scurry, silently coating the cobbles with death and disease. It's a life of extremes, this. Pomp and poverty. Science and superstition. The haves and have-nots. Ladies whisper and giggle in lavish dining halls, heavy silk drapes pulled tightly to hide the emaciated husks of citizens lying, and dying, beyond the manicured lawn.

Games often touch us not only because of what they are, but what they're not and, for me, Dishonored was a game that relaxed traditional gameplay in a way I hadn't quite anticipated. It unshackled expectations, permitting me to explore Dunwall's battered, broken environs at my own pace and in my own style.

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To mark the end of the 2010s, we're celebrating 30 games that defined the last 10 years. You can find all the articles as they're published in the Games of the Decade archive, and read about our thinking about it in an editor's blog.

It's hard to think of a game that's been subject to just as much revisionism as Skyrim. Maybe that's to be expected, given its dizzying success. The game is everywhere and its cultural reach is almost insurmountable - so much so that the jokes about climbing mountains, taking arrows and porting to toasters have all been unfashionably irksome for much longer than they were ever funny in the first place. And with all that success comes the inevitable and insufferable "not that good actually" crowd.

But they are wrong! Skyrim is good, actually. Exactly as good as everyone says it is. And it is good for a lot of reasons but none of them as truly special, I think, as its world - or rather, more specifically, the ineffable rules that bind it. There is an intangible realism to Skyrim's world that I haven't really felt in a game of its budget and scope since. It's in the mechanics of it - the literal mechanics; the basic billiard balls of the physics - and the best example I can think of, for some reason, is pushing people off a ledge.

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I visited Obsidian Entertainment a couple of weeks ago for the reveal of the studio's first game for new owner Microsoft. If you remember, The Outer Worlds was published by Private Division, Take-Two's label for partnering with independent studios (Obsidian was independent when the deal was made). This was, then, a significant moment.

The game itself was a bit of an anti-climax - Grounded, a small-team survival game with a Honey I Shrunk the Kids hook - but I still got an opportunity to nose around the studio and see what changed post-acquisition and since I visited in August 2017.

The answer, in a nutshell, is "not a lot", which is encouraging. Obsidian still resides in the same office block in the eerily perfect city of Irvine, California, and still occupies the same amount of office space. It's still a bit tatty, which I like, and the only real sign there's now Microsoft money behind the studio is a pile of boxes with computers and monitors in them.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series celebrating the poor old parts of games we tend to overlook. Not the glitzy bits but the supporting cast. Things like crowds - whoever stops to think about a crowd? And how do you think that makes the crowd feel? But the games they're in wouldn't be the same without them, so let's big them up a bit, shall we?

Also, I want your ideas! I want to know what you remember when you read the title of this week's piece, the things that spring to mind. Don't worry about what I think, no one ever does, but do jump in the comments below. We've had some lovely discussions and you've remembered loads of great details about games.You can find all the previous Five of the Bests in a handy archive.

So, on to today's five. But how to summit up...?

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Welcome to another week of Five of the Best, a series celebrating the lovely incidental details in games we tend to overlook. So far we've celebrated hands, potions, dinosaurs, shops, health-pick-ups and maps - a real smorgasbord! I really wanted to use that word.

Best of all, it's Friday again, which means another Five of the Best and another chance for you to share your thoughts as well as sit through mine (well, ours - I sometimes rope in a bit of help). Today, it's...

Hubs! What would a game be without one? A messy pile of level spaghetti, that's what. Where would you go to chill out? Where would you chat up other characters? Yep, games would be rubbish without hubs.

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OK, so I know Eurogamer's actual birthday was two days ago, but as is our style, the Eurogamer video team is once again Late to the (birthday) Party.

Over the past three years, we've been introducing each other to our favourite (and/or least favourite) games from yesteryear as part of our Late to the Party series. During that time we've shared our love (and/or hatred) for over one hundred and fifty different games and thanks to this, we've been able to make a compilation episode of LTTP that features one game from every year that Eurogamer has been alive.

In this video, Aoife, Zoe and I are joined by some friendly video team faces from the past (who?!) as we play our way through the 20 years worth of games, including 1999's Dino Crisis, 2006's Gears of War and 2017's PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Basically, if you want a healthy dose of nostalgia (or just want to feel rather old) this is the video for you!

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Welcome to another week of Five of the Best, a series where we celebrate the overlooked parts of video games, like hands! And potions! And dinosaurs! And shops! They're the kinds of things etched unwittingly into memory, like an essential ingredient of a favourite dish you could never put a finger on. And I want to spark discussion, so please share memories as they flash into your mind. Today, another five. The topic...

Health pick-ups! Oh how very specific - but I need to be. I'm not talking about health systems but the things you pick up to heal yourself. Used to be all games did it this way, but then Halo came along with its recharging health and all of a sudden everyone wanted the same. Now that feels like the norm.

But there are old-fashioned health systems out there (and they'll probably take offence at being called old-fashioned, so I'm sorry, I don't mean it in a bad way!). I still see Overwatch health packs when I close my eyes at night, and potions, which I've written a whole Five of the Best on, are a dime a dozen in RPGs. They're still out there, still crucial to how we get through games.

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