I hope something comes out of this other than a cease and desist order or worse a lawsuit.
You seem to have confused Bethesda for Nintendo. There is no reason to even have the thought you had and decided to comment.
They’ve allowed the Skywind and Skyblivion projects to continue, under the assumption you’ll need to own the previous games in order to run the mod.
I thought both of those projects were explicitly not using files and models from the original games, but were instead recreating the content.
A lot of total asset replacement mods and ports require some form of check against a legitimate copy, such that they aren’t distributing copies of a game, just a way for people to modify their own copy. It isn’t a flawless legal defense, far from it, but it’s a whole lot better than just getting hit with “you’re just outright distributing a copy of someone else’s game”
They are but I heard they have to do a check to make sure you have them in your library or something. It’s been a couple of years and I’m pulling from memory.