The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is one of the most important RPGs of the 21st century. Expanding the world of Tamriel, birthing unforgettable moments, and unintentionally producing plenty of memes along the way, Oblivion changed how we looked at Bethesda Game Studios and altered the trajectory of the Elder Scrolls franchise. Now, Virtuos has returned to the world of Cyrodiil, giving it beautiful visual upgrades and mechanical enhancements, without compromising anything that made Oblivion, Oblivion.
The hour of doom
Source: Xbox Game Studios
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered stretches the limit of what would be considered a remaster versus a full remake. With Unreal Engine 5, Virtuos has completely overhauled the graphics and textures of Oblivion. Characters and creatures have new models that are on par with modern graphics, and new animations to make their movements a little less janky.
The developers have also gone through and re-recorded voice lines for various characters, giving each race their own distinct sound. The face models now have better lip syncing for their respective voice lines, one of the game’s many new modern touches.
The world itself has a wider range of color, doing away with the smudged look of the 2006 original. While a lot of fans have an affinity for Oblivion’s unique art direction, it’s eye-watering to finally have the game in high definition. Cyrodiil is rich with forests, mountains, and bodies of water, all of which look utterly beautiful in the remaster. The best part of an Elder Scrolls game is getting lost in the world and letting it wash over you, and the upgraded visuals in Oblivion Remastered emboldened me to explore every nook and cranny.
Of course, Oblivion has also been caught up to speed with 4K support and an increased framerate. I mostly played on PC, but spent some time on Steam Deck as well. There were of course some concessions when playing on Valve’s handheld device, but it was still a relatively solid experience. The game ran better in closed environments, but gave me some issues during more busy sequences in the open world.
Gladiator club
Source: Xbox Game Studios
The changes and improvements in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered also extend to gameplay. Virtuos has added a proper sprint button, which makes world navigation much easier. Still, players will get faster over time as they increase their Speed attribute. In general, the movement system feels far smoother, and improvements to the third person camera actually made me want to use it from time to time.
In combat, a slew of minor changes come together to craft an experience that feels more tactile and less cumbersome. Weapon swings and shield movements felt more authentic, making melee feel much more viable to me. I’m from the family of sneaky archers, but I enjoyed employing a variety of combat tactics as I climbed my way up the Arena rankings.
Some changes in the remaster are hard to immediately notice. Perhaps one of the most underrated improvements is that loading screens move much faster. I love a Bethesda RPG, but it’s more than fair to critique how often and how long they make you sit and stare at loading screens. Oblivion will still have you doing so every time you enter and exit a shop, but the wait takes a fraction of the time and is much more forgivable this time around.
The gates of Oblivion
Source: Xbox Game Studios
Returning to this world all these years later, I was impressed by how well it all held up. The story is still one of Bethesda’s best, and I had honestly forgotten how many memorable characters there were in Cyrodiil. The Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine DLC are included with the remaster, and this was actually my first time getting to play them. They fit seamlessly into the rest of the game and ended up being some of my favorite story content overall.
While Virtuos did an excellent job at modernizing some of Oblivion’s more dated features, I wish there had been an overhaul to enemy scaling. Level scaling, on paper, makes sense: the world is vast and open to players after they finish the tutorial, you don’t want them immediately wandering into an area where enemies are killing them in one hit, and on the flipside, they should constantly be challenged. In actuality, it makes mundane tasks frustrating, and prevents me from being able to assess the difficulty of a given situation on my own. It also feels punishing when you get to some of Oblivion’s more challenging quests, as waiting to do them at a higher level just makes the entire thing absolutely brutal.
For Cyrodiil
Source: Xbox Game Studios
What’s truly awesome is that underneath all the new glitz and glamour, Oblivion Remastered is still Oblivion. Bethesda games are infamous for their bugs and quirks, and a lot of that goes back to the incredibly ambitious game that was The Elder Scrolls 4 in 2006. This time around, it’s a lot cleaner and more presentable, but still littered with awkward animations and full-on flubs that have been lovingly preserved as part of the game’s legacy. There’s a real charm to this world, its story, and characters. As a kid who grew up in the 2000s, I’ve got a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in Oblivion, and a bit of concern realizing that this game is approaching its 20th anniversary. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is undoubtedly the new definitive way to experience Bethesda’s flawed masterpiece, a game that continues to be a standard for western RPGs.
This review is based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is available now for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
- Much-needed quality of life improvements
- Beautiful visual upgrades
- Combat feels smoother
- Oblivion still rules
- Level scaling still feels bad
- Some of the jank is annoying
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replyDonovan Erskine posted a new article, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered review: The ruler of my own dreams
