Comedian Alasdair Beckett-King was a die-hard adventure gamer until he discovered Morrowind: ‘The first time I loaded it up, I walked straight into a little pond and was killed by a fish’
PC Gamer’s Disk Cleanup feature profiles comedian Alasdair Beckett-King, examining his lifelong relationship with gaming. Beckett-King’s gaming journey began in childhood with a second-hand ZX Spectrum and a black-and-white monitor, where he played the challenging platformer Dizzy. This early exposure set the stage for his passion for adventure games, which he pursued once reaching PC gaming.
Beckett-King became enamored with classic LucasArts adventure titles including The Secret of Monkey Island and Full Throttle, a preference he maintained throughout his life and career transition into film school. However, his allegiance to traditional adventure game design was fundamentally shaken when he discovered The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The open-world RPG’s non-linear approach and alien landscape of Vvardenfell proved jarring compared to the linear, story-focused adventures he had long cherished.
In a humorous anecdote capturing the culture clash between adventure game conventions and Morrowind’s unforgiving design philosophy, Beckett-King recounts his first encounter with the game: upon loading it for the first time, he immediately wandered into a small pond where he was promptly killed by a fish. The incident exemplifies how Morrowind’s departure from traditional game guidance and its harsh, consequential world design caught seasoned adventure gamers off guard, reshaping his perspective on what gaming could offer.