A classic returns in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

The Dragonfires are dying, the emperor is running for his life, and you are a prisoner who holds the fate of Tamriel in their hands. Yes, Oblivion is back! But has the joint venture of Bethesda and Virtuos done enough to tempt players to revisit?

I took no stock in the rumours that had been circulating for years that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would or should get a remake. I’m firmly in the camp of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” meaning if a game is perfectly playable on modern systems or consoles it doesn’t need to be “remade” or “remastered”. So, it was that I watched the Oblivion live reveal fully prepared to be cynical and underwhelmed and oh boy was I ever wrong.

My socks were knocked off by the presentation. They had gone back into Oblivion and not only given it a facelift but rerecorded certain audio, added a new lighting system, overhauled the levelling system, and the list goes on.

Still being cynical I thought “Okay, then but how long are you going to tease us with this?” fully expecting a release window of Summer (A few months away from the time of writing) only for them to say “Today!” and on Game Pass. Needless to say, I was stunned and after recovering, immediately began to download.

So is it a remake or a remaster? Oblivion Remastered, as the name suggests, is a remaster as they’ve not rebuilt it from the ground up; they just added a lot (and I mean a lot) of bells and whistles. First up is the massive graphical overhaul which is more than just fancy textures. All the characters have had a new face rig applied, which has a lot more variety than the base game and more animation to boot.

This is great as characters now emote more in cutscenes really giving impact to the performances. People look surprised or angry, sad etc. Plus they took the time to refine the motions so it translates great to non-human races as well. The speech does look a bit weird with the overly animated mouths sometimes, but it has a weird charm that makes you forgive it.

All this fancy new rigging didn’t affect Oblivion’s infamous character creator either. You can still make monstrosities or your perfect waifu/husbando if you wish. Plus, the added bonus of facial hair options! A feature missing from the original Oblivion.

While I was wandering the world, I was just amazed at the little details adding flair to the presentation. The amount of foliage brings the world to life with added bushes and grass tufts at the side of the paths; the little animations when you gather plants; gore even appears on your weapon when it strikes flesh. I was amused for longer than I care to admit by the flapping jaw of a goblin head staff.

Topping this off Virtuos have inserted Unreal Engine 5 just for the lighting and the results are utterly breathtaking. Light beams shine through windows, lanterns light dim dungeons, and the night sky and weather effects look fantastic. The first time we come across an Oblivion gate in the story, the sky turns red and clouds billow until we finally see the fiery portal flickering light everywhere. This effect was present in the main menu but seeing it in-game was spectacular and only equalled by the hellish landscape of the underworld of Oblivion.

Quality of life upgrades have also been added under the hood in the menus as well. Rather than the cramped window in the original, the map is now full screen with the ability to zoom in and out and customise markers. Quests now have their own dedicated section and the inventory is more organised with different sections and 3D models rather than the giant list of doom 2006 provided us with.

Although some new voice lines were recorded to add more variety to the NPCs, the majority of the soundscape is ported directly with some possible clean-up from the original. Nothing added feels out of place and you still get the sometimes hilarious dynamic conversations in the streets. Fans of course will be on the lookout for the excellent performances of Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean and the infamous “you violated the law” quote.

Playing the introduction as the music swelled to the title was like greeting an old friend who had returned. Again all the original tracks are present and I had no idea how ingrained in my memory they were. The ambient track playing as you explore the wilderness, the battle theme ramping up, spell effects, and weapons clashing just felt and sounded right.

Underneath all the fancy trappings it is still the original Oblivion game from 2006 with all of the limitations of the time still present. Objects like trees and buildings and NPC pathing are identical. The NPC count in towns is lower than you would imagine, leaving them bare yet beautiful. It still has to load between different cells, which was particularly frustrating in the Imperial City, but thankfully this is offset by the faster loading times. There were also some graphical pop-ins on longer shots and characters fade in as you entered buildings.

A great deal of Oblivion’s original mechanics are present; the first lockpicking minigame, the obtuse “conversation pie” but also the great stuff like spell and potion crafting and haggling for a better deal from merchants. The one mechanic that did get an overhaul was the divisive level system. It’s still level up ten or so skills before your character needs to rest, but now we get stat points to allocate meaning we have more control over our growth than ever before.

So is there anything new added to the plot or side quests? Well, at the time of writing, it appears nothing new has been added. It has the same plot and side questing from the original but it is complete with all DLC from Shivering Isles, Knights of the Nine, Frostcrag Spire and even the infamous Horse Armour! Unfortunately, this also means that some of Oblivion’s less impressive gameplay is still present like the sprawling caves and the half-destroyed forts still litter the environment.

A lot of praise needs to go to Virtuos for pulling off this gargantuan task as they appeared to have fixed a number of the bugs and glitches (or “special features”). There’s no more item duplication with scrolls or climbing up the world with paintbrushes any more. But as in all things, the more you fix the more you can possibly break.

The community are already hard at work finding new and exciting ways to exploit the game. I only had a couple of uninteresting bugs, including a game crash for creating too many potions at once or the looting occasionally glitching out. Oblivion can still be broken with the use of in-game mechanics and I’ve already seen people flying across the map with a clever combination of enchantments and spells.

The modding community is also hard at work updating or developing new mods for the PC version. Even with an almost twenty-year backlog, a surprising amount of mods has come out already.

Playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered was like playing Oblivion for the first time again. The soul of the original is still intact so if you liked the original you will love the remaster. If you have even the slightest interest in playing Oblivion for the first time, it’s not a matter of if you should dive in but when.

If I’m honest, I don’t think I would have dropped the (quite reasonable) asking price for a game I already own (three times) had it not been on Game Pass but after experiencing this, Oblivion Remastered is now the definitive way to play. I would be hard-pressed to return to the original.