The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

The original Oblivion is probably the game I've put the most hours into over the years. I remember watching the trailers on repeat when I was an unemployed twenty-something cop, and I was excited as a little Easter lamb for the game to finally come out. When it arrived, I played hundreds if not thousands of hours, scouring Cyrodiil for even the smallest missions or ruins that hadn't been discovered before, and then finally the last Oblivion gates that had to be closed. I never imagined that Bethesda would update their old game, but then the internet started buzzing with claims that Oblivion was coming in a new and shiny version, and although the game was teased several times, it never materialised. However, that changed recently when Oblivion Remastered was shadow-dropped and I was looking at a Steam download button a few days ago. Here are my experiences with Bethesda and Virtuos' update.



I'm going to focus mostly on what's new in the Remastered version, as most people have probably played as much if not more than me, so let's get started. I'll start with what people have probably heard the most about, which is the new coat of paint that the classic has received. According to the developers, Oblivion Remastered runs on the old Creation Engine game engine, which Bethesda still uses a newer version of for games like Fallout 4 and Starfield, and they call it the brain behind the update. That is, it's what powers the AI and game mechanics, and on top of it runs the Unreal 5 graphics engine, so everything looks shiny and new. You can clearly feel the Creation Engine running the show behind all the graphical bling. It feels like Oblivion down to its core, for better or worse. The game still has that charming jank that people complained about when the game first came out, but which the internet has now decided absolutely must not be missing from the game. The characters still talk over each other in a big way, and when you arrive in one of the capital's districts, you are bombarded with the same wry outbursts from the characters that you have always received. Once you get used to the graphics being as beautiful as they are, Oblivion Remastered feels extremely similar to the original. A product of its time to that extent, and that's great.

However, a few things have been added to the game to make it feel fresher too. For example, there are more voices for the different races in the game, which gives it a breath of fresh air. I did notice that the sound quality was slightly different between the old and new voices, and that's no doubt in part down to the re-recorded lines.



Another addition is that the levelling system has been updated. Whereas before you were rewarded for the skills you used the most, here you can choose to spend twelve skill points on the skills you want, which means that you can also get better at skills you haven't necessarily used that much, which is pretty cool. I don't know which I prefer though. I don't think I actually felt a big difference, but it's good to have options. All in all, the new additions are quite nice, but it doesn't change the fact that this is Oblivion and I'm quite happy about that.

One thing I wish the developers had changed was that the enemies still level up with you. My biggest criticism was, and still is, that at the start you meet thieves with blunt iron weapons, but when you level up you meet ordinary bandits with the best equipment, which makes you wonder, if they are running around with Daedric equipment do they even need to rob random people? It could be modded out in the original, and I hope it will be the case in the new version, because it's probably the most annoying thing about both the original and this new iteration of the legendary fantasy game.

Let's talk about what you can see in the trailers, the beautiful graphics that the game has put on like a robe over a worn suit. Unreal's many graphical muscles are utilised in the update, from all kinds of lighting effects to the magic of Ray-Tracing, which can also slow down the frame rate. If you have a machine that can handle it, it all looks impressive, but I needed frame generation to reach over 60 frames per second, and I also hear that the game sputters on consoles. I wonder if it will get better over time? One would hope so. Fortunately, a lot of it can be turned off, which allows less powerful systems to run the game, but it doesn't look nearly as good. The lighting is a big part of what makes the game look so great in the trailers, and when it's gone it all looks a bit flat unfortunately.


The characters are also a point where I have some ambivalent thoughts. The internet has decided that the mouth movements are bad, but I don't have a problem with that. The internet loves to complain, but we history teachers teach something called source criticism, and I don't think it's a big problem. What I think is a problem is that the characters look weird. There are no nice people in Oblivion. Almost everyone looks like caricatures and looks worse than they did in the original Oblivion. I think it's because wrinkles and stuff just didn't really look like wrinkles then and they do now, which leads to extremely ugly characters, even when we're talking young and rich people in the capital. It's almost as if Unreal has made everything too realistic, and I don't like that. It takes some of the charm out of the game that I felt for the original. It may be subjective and just me, but the developers could have done better here. They could have with the many textures, especially in the caves where you could see the seam at the bottom of the caves where there were little triangles that had no surface. It's a bit sloppy.

The story is the same if you play the regular version of the game. All the expansions are included, which is great, and it's historically the same experience that many have probably had over and over again in the nineteen years the game has been out. If you buy the premium version, you get some extra missions and some horse armour, which is quite ironic for those in the know, but I'm not sure if it's worth the extra 10 euros. I still think the story holds up as it should, and while there are several missions I can complete in no time because I know them by heart, there are still missions that are cool to experience with the updated graphics. Shivering Isles is also great to see in the new visuals the developer has given the game. Unreal 5 just suits the more acidic style of Sheogorath's domain more than it perhaps does the idyllic landscapes of Cyrodiil.

So, all in all, I think Oblivion Remastered is a skilful re-release of a legendary game that will bring out the nostalgia in most who have lived with the story and Martin Septim's battle against Mehrunes Dagon for almost two decades. Bethesda and Virtuos has kept the atmosphere and skeleton of what Oblivion was and updated it to feel fresh. Oblivion is a product of its time, and I don't know if new players will be able to live with the jank and awkwardness that the rest of us find charming today, but as a beautiful and shiny time capsule, Oblivion Remastered is everything you could want. No more and no less.