OpenMW 0.52.0 for Morrowind gets a fresh release candidate to test new features

2 Nov 2026 at 10:57 am UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand

The amazing open source game engine OpenMW for the classic RPG Morrowind has released a release candidate for the upcoming 0.52.0 release. Lots of exciting changes are coming for players and modders, I've rounded-up some of the bigger bits along with the full changelog below.

As a reminder - you do need the original game to access the data to allow OpenMW to run. Store links for that will be at the bottom.

Key Highlights

• Clustered lighting, removing the usual per-object light limit without a major performance hit.

• Expanded Lua modding, allowing custom skills, attributes, weather and more.

• Improved visuals, including fixes for water rendering, terrain, transparency and new water ripples from spell projectiles.

• Combat AI improvements, including better enemy targeting, melee movement and revised spell projectile aiming.

• New graphics options, including in-game shadow settings and configurable third-person camera distance.

• Various quality-of-life improvements, including a controller mouse-emulation indicator, a more zoomed-out minimap and launcher improvements.

This is the first round of release candidate (RC) builds of the upcoming 0.52.0 stable release, available for wider testing. Preliminary changes vs. the 0.51.0 stable release are listed below; further changes may occur in subsequent RC rounds and in the full release.

Flatpak (Linux)

Read the announcement blog post here.

Note that the saved game format has changed. Existing saves will be compatible with 0.52.0, but you cannot go back to an earlier release to load a save created in 0.52.0.

Known Issues

• On macOS, launching OpenMW from OpenMW-CS requires OpenMW.app and OpenMW-CS.app to be siblings.
• [#7511] On Windows, a freeze may be reported if engine startup takes too long; ignoring the message is usually harmless, as it should eventually disappear, but if it doesn't, please share the freeze dump with us.
• [#8233] Hardware antialiasing may cause driver timeouts on AMD GPUs of the RX 6000 and 7000 series; this is a driver bug AMD has yet to address.
• [#8255] On Intel GPUs, the game may freeze visually while still responding to input. This is a driver bug; as a workaround, you may need to install an older version of the driver.
• [#9461] With newer AMD drivers, the explored map may look broken due to a zero division in the fog shader not being handled gracefully. Enabling exponential fog can act as a workaround.
• [QTBUG-150017] macOS: Qt tools don't use the native design because of a style change workaround applied to avoid this yet-to-be-patched Qt issue.

Gameplay

New Features

• [#9082] Sound spell sound effect is restored when the save is reloaded.

Fixes

• [#6117] Combat AI target selection prefers closer targets rather than easier targets once again.
• [#8257] Fallback to an attack animation when a casting animation is missing for non-biped creatures is now per-range, e.g., allowing centurion spiders to cast on-self spells.
• [#8813] Water-walking actors now drown when knocked out.
• [#8822] Interaction focus ignores terrain by default.
• [#9023] Guards no longer assist with fighting non-aggressive creatures, e.g., immobile creatures.
• [#9099] Exiting the combat stance as a werewolf no longer triggers roaring.
• [#9101] Paralysis cancels out sneaking stance changes.
• [#9154] Knockdown application has been dehardcoded and occurs before armour reduces the damage again.
• [#9179] Immobile creatures no longer attempt to wander.
• [#9249] Items can no longer be picked up during pause by werewolf characters.
• [#9258] Knockdown no longer breaks the equip animation and properly restarts the unequip animation.
• [#9273] Additional instances of autocalculated NPCs also get autocalculated spells.
• [#9296] Summoning no longer requires Bloodmoon to be installed.
• [#9321] The missing section of ranged attack animations before the reloading animation now plays properly.
• [#9328] Enemy followers no longer fight the player after Calm expires.
• [#9342] Consuming from a container no longer consumes inventory items first.
• [#9345] Spell projectile moving target aiming has been rewritten and physical projectile moving target aiming has been removed to match Morrowind.
• [#9361] Elemental shields react to ranged attacks.
• [#9384] Experience stored when sneaking with no observer is gained when you enter an observer's range.
• [#9409] Implemented terminal velocity (and fixed gravity being 0.01% off).
• [#9423] Pitch transition is no longer skipped when a ranged attack is released early.
• [#9424] Invalid teleport door destinations no longer break the game.
• [#9431] Melee combat AI approaches and follows the target closer when entering the attack range, improving kiting reaction.
• [#9433] Combat AI turns every frame, for better or worse.

Graphics

New Features

• [#6900] Clustered lighting, which allows removing the normal per-object light limit.
• [#9053] Light radius multiplier affects light fadeout radius.
• [#9302] Spell projectiles cause water ripples.

Fixes

• [#2633, #4749, #6153, #7029] Fixes for various refraction- and transparency-related problems with water rendering.
• [#4954, #6904] Animated transparency now overrides Chameleon/Invisibility transparency, e.g., for dwarven spectres and ancestor ghosts.
• [#5061] Attached VFX (e.g., casting VFX) are no longer affected by Chameleon/Invisibility transparency.
• [#6359] Refraction-disabled water surface now supports underwater fogging, wobbly shores and sunlight scattering features.
• [#6912] Terrain rendering at defined and auto-generated cell intersections should no longer look broken.
• [#7176] Increased post-processing normal precision from RGB8 to RGB16.
• [#7853] Refraction-enabled water no longer suffers from depth precision artifacts.
• [#8464] macOS: Fixed red tint on Apple silicon.
• [#8853] Sun glare is no longer cut off at the horizon.
• [#9052] Per-vertex sunlight is clamped per-vertex rather than per-pixel. This makes its brightness fully consistent with Morrowind.
• [#9138] Non-shader water ripples are no longer lit, matching Morrowind and preventing flickering.
• [#9223] Interior water no longer reflects the interior directional light.
• [#9252] Improved LOD range selection when active grid object paging is enabled.
• [#9357] Night sky rotation matches Morrowind.
• [#9398] Moons are slightly larger and sharper.
• [#9422] Addressed more moon movement inconsistencies.
• [#9428] Terrain post-processing normals are now blended.
• [#9429] Fixed texture coordinate generation for very distant terrain.

NIF Format

New Features

• [#3602] Support for NiBillboardNode modes.
• [#6938] Support for NiLookAtController.
• [#9151] Support for RCN NIF extra data flag.

Fixes

• [#8134] NiLODNode ranges are converted to avoid overlapping.
• [#9170] Various NiPlanarCollider fixes, e.g., it will no longer deflect particles that move away from it.

Scripting: mwscript

New Features

• [#9367] OutputRefInfo (ORI) lists the meshes and textures of NPC body parts.

Fixes

• [#9083] GetCastPenalty returns negative values for positive Sound magnitudes for consistency with Morrowind.
• [#9137] ToggleAI state is no longer reset when a save is loaded.
• [#9247] Position instruction converts the angle from degrees to radians twice like Morrowind rather than from minutes to radians.
• [#9257] Flying actors are not considered to be standing on objects and are thus no longer affected by the HurtStandingActor instruction (lava damage).

Scripting: OpenMW-Lua

UI Features

• [#7743] Padding property.
• [#9123] Flex widget gap and wrap properties.
• [#9206] It is now possible to access all elements of a layer.
• [#9207] Exposed TextureResource properties.
• [#9214] Mouse wheel event.
• [#9229] Cursor API.
• [#9274] ignorePointerEvents property.

Custom Records

• [#7359, #9109] Load context: skills and attributes, classes, factions, races, levelled lists, tools and weathers. Existing skills, attributes and weathers are dehardcoded (though still required for Morrowind mechanics).
• [#9065] Runtime generation: ingredients and levelled lists.

New Bindings

• [#7586] Levelled lists.
• [#7710] Starting and stopping mwscript scripts.
• [#8948] Corpses Persist actor flag.
• [#9144] Moon phases and transparency.
• [#9425] Focused object.
• [#9427] Cell loading state.

New Engine Handlers

• [#9122] Viewport resize.
• [#9148] Temporary magic effect application, which has been dehardcoded.
• [#9216] Dropping and placing objects.
• [#9265] Magic projectile hit.

Other New Features

• [#9043] Lua garbage collection has been parallelised.
• [#9104] Wind-up strength Combat interface hit parameter (as opposed to attack strength).
• [#9129] Lua-attached VFX transformations.
• [#9205] Lua Combat interface now accepts records and record IDs.
• [#9253] It is now possible to mark objects as unmodified through Lua.
• [#9254] It is now possible to find all instances of an object using its ID through Lua.
• [#9374] Storm direction has been dehardcoded.
• [#9426] It is now possible to take screenshots through Lua.

Fixes

• [#6748] UI layouts react to window resizing.
• [#8856] mwscript variable index bindings are case-insensitive.
• [#9116] Indexing non-existent elements of layout contents no longer causes an error.
• [#9222] To improve performance, setting page loading is delayed until the relevant page is actually seen.
• [#9121] Engaging in combat with a non-actor is no longer possible.
• [#9130] Load context: ingredient data is reset before new values are assigned.
• [#9146] When an active spell is added, on-self healing effects do not show the enemy health bar.
• [#9147] When an active spell is added during pause, spell icons are updated.
• [#9180] Actor.spells(actor):canUsePower can now be called on another actor from a local script.
• [#9183] Number setting renderer clamps input.
• [#9230] Replacing element layout no longer causes the engine to access the destroyed root widget and crash.
• [#9236] Keys with empty names are clickable in the input binding renderer.
• [#9324] Storage file loading should now be foolproof.
• [#9338] Queued actions like teleporting are now reset when a save is loaded.
• [#9346] Setting skill increases for an attribute to a negative value is no longer considered a crime against nature.

User Interface and Configuration

New Features

• [#5887] It is now possible to deselect the inventory search field.
• [#9033] Controller joystick mouse emulation mode indicator circle.
• [#9090] Third-person camera maximum distance is configurable.
• [#9301] In-game shadow settings.
• [#9354] UI scaling factor is applied to the cursor.
• [#9382] Tooltips for spell effects that are recalculated every frame show their range.
• [#9430] The anisotropy slider is now a drop-down list.

Fixes

• [#8323] Fixed animated main menu video stuttering.
• [#9128] Clicking during the intro video no longer makes it unskippable.
• [#9134] macOS: Fixed trackpad scrolling.
• [#9142] Minimap is zoomed out 2x.
• [#9149] Added mouse scrolling steps to setting sliders.
• [#9157] Show Owned Objects tint is applied in menus.
• [#9161] macOS: Fixed map zooming position.
• [#9173] Shift-modified console keybinding no longer closes the console.
• [#9187] Local map transitions have been disabled for map zooming due to unintuitive behaviour.
• [#9344] Keyboard navigation no longer resets key focus every frame.
• [#9444] Integer setting sliders no longer skip numbers.

Tools

New Features

• [#5712] Editor: Initial file order preserves the enabled content file order from the launcher.
• [#8241] Launcher: Data directories can now be added by dragging-and-dropping them from a file manager.
• [#9201] ESS Importer: Support for (bugged) MWSE-generated SCPT records with >255 plugins enabled.

Fixes

• [#2708] Launcher: Now preserves the order of disabled content files.
• [#9094] Editor: The script verifier no longer lets you jump to the wrong line when word-wrapping is enabled.
• [#9343] Launcher: No longer discards unrecognised launcher.cfg settings, restoring its forward compatibility.

Other

New Features

• [#8546] Windows: Support for files larger than 4 GB.
• [#9404] Linux crash catcher can now try to use debug symbol servers.

Fixes

• [#9084] Resting, recharging and respawning skip objects with no custom data, preventing some save bloat.
• [#9447] TES4+ plugin reader no longer drops the last 4 bytes of decompressed records.
• [#9448] TES4+ plugin reader no longer skips the last record in a content file.

Platform: 🐧 Native LinuxOfficial links:Official WebsiteSteam Deck 🟡 PlayablePlatform: ⚛ Proton / Wine (Windows)Release Date: 📅 16th June 2009Devs:Bethesda Game StudiosOfficial links:GOGSteam 🌐 External Sources: openmw.org Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com. Tags: Native Linux, Proton, GOG, RPG, Steam | Apps: OpenMW , The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition 10 Likes Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:Steam Beta for October 15 brings a 64bit Linux client, Achievement Sets and moreGOG and Retrovibe team up for indie game publishingPimax to improve Linux VR support, announces Crystal Pro headset and their own Steam MachineFactorio 2.1 is out now with the native ARM64 Linux build to run on Steam Frame, Raspberry Pi and more All posts need to follow our rules. Please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Readers can also email us for any issues or concerns.