The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

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It really happened! The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has released! Developed by Bethesda Game Studios and Virtuos, it is available right now for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5. The base game includes all of the old DLCs that are available for the original version of the game. However, there is also a Digital Deluxe Edition that features quests for new armour and weapons, as well as a digital artbook and the game’s soundtrack!

By The Nine!

Well, that release was unexpected! Like sure, yeah, there were leaks, but when can you ever properly believe those? Anyways! I’m so thrilled to see so much love shown to my second favourite The Elder Scrolls game — I’m a Morrowind girlie, fight me. Still, I love Oblivion with every fibre of my being, and this remaster has settled straight into my heart. Personally, I think this is exactly how a remaster should be done. The game, the story, the dialogue, and feel all stayed the same. Most changes, apart from graphics, of course, were highly requested by fans, or were bug fixes and pure quality of life updates. The game looks gorgeous and plays well… Minus a couple FPS issues, that is.

Are you excited? I’m excited. Well, then, shall we get into it?

An in game screenshot from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered showing an area that has been burnt to bits. In the middle stands a large gate to Oblivion, an oval portal of flames burning bright and tinting the sky red. — The Jaws of Oblivion have opened.

Gameplay

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is an open-world, adventure RPG, set in the province of Cyrodiil. It is the remastered version of the fourth instalment in the Elder Scrolls series. You are tasked by the Emperor, shortly before his demise, to find his last living son. The cult known as the Mythic Dawn is opening the gates to Oblivion (basically hell), and only he can close shut its jaws and save the world from the demonic entities threatening to overrun it. You can focus on this mission, or you run off and do a bazillion side quests first. Your choice really. It’s okay. Nobody will judge you if you go through a bunch of questlines to get a slightly cooler sword before you help save the world. Not like people rely on you or anything.

After all, given you can freely roam the open world, of course you’d love to explore. Vast forests, ancient ruins, lakes, and caves basically invite you to just “quickly” check them out as you pass. Maybe pick up yet another side quest from some random NPC you run into, or brawl with some Mudcrabs. Speaking of combat, Oblivion features many different ways to deal with enemies. From blades, to maces, bows and magic, you can fight in any way you please and hone your skills to become even more powerful.

A screenshot from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. The player character is sitting on a black horse on top of a hill, looking at the Imperial City in the distance. — Feels like home.

What’s New? What’s Not?

Of course, this is a comprehensive remaster, so there are some slight changes to the game. Apart from the graphics, some updates may not even be that noticeable if you have not played the original game in a while. I was excited to see what they had in stock for this, so I jumped straight into the game the second I got my hands on it.

So, as per usual, I started off with the tutorial, and so far so good. Bonk a few rats, see the Emperor get stabbed, normal stuff. I leave the sewers and ~~instantly start the main quest~~ teleport to Skingrad (teleporting to every city is still possible before visiting them) to meet my boy Glarthir. No particular reason, I just like him and his quest. I enter through the gate and immediately get jump scared. What did they do to my boy?? Who decided to give him a beard??

Screenshot from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. An NPC called Glarthir, telling the player to leave him alone. — Look how they massacred my boy.

Regardless of my nitpicks, the new character models look very nice and the addition of facial hair is cool. The Khajiit especially got quite an upgrade from the original game, looking a lot more feline and a lot less “low quality plastic toy of a cat you got from the bargain bin”, you know the kind. Anyway, after hanging out with my bestie, I fight some randos, do way too many side quests and remember that I should probably actually check out the other changes that have been made.

Quality Of Life

While the remastered version of the game remains very faithful to the original, many quality-of-life improvements, combat changes, and adjustments to the levelling system have been made. The game’s story obviously stayed the same, so did all the dialogue and the voice lines (yes, even that one), though they did cast a few new voice actors to add more variety to the different NPCs. Minigames, such as lock picking and persuasion, are mostly the same, with just some small visual and auditory changes. Overall, the game still feels the same as it did back then, just a bit smoother and less tedious.

However, away from combat, one of the nicest changes would probably be the new levelling system. All skills will now contribute to levelling up your character, not just major skills. Attribute increases have been overhauled entirely, putting in place a new system in which, upon levelling up, you are given 12 virtue points to be distributed between your attributes in order to increase them. Though, you are limited to picking only 3 different attributes per level and only 5 virtues can be assigned to a single one. This, and some adjustments to the way enemy levels scale with your own, helps to prevent the player from making poor levelling choices. Consequently, this makes it less likely they’ll get stuck fighting enemies that are way too strong for them, like in the original game.

Screenshot from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered showing new levelling screen. The player character is shown on the right-hand side of the screen. On the left had side is a panel displaying the character's stats. — How should I spend my points?

Modernization

A lot of features have also gone through “Skyrim-ification”, modernizing them to offer a smoother experience. The third-person perspective has been reworked to allow independent character and camera movement. You can now move while over-encumbered — it’s slow, and you can’t jump, but at least you are no longer stuck in place because you dared to pick up one extra apple. Also, your health will now recover outside of combat based on your Endurance stats. So, no more waiting around in random locations after combat to heal up! Achievements have been added too.

The user interface has also been given a Skyrim-inspired overhaul. Your Magicka, Health and Fatigue are now displayed at the bottom of the screen, hiding when not actively in use. Another nice addition is the progress bar that will now display upon raising a skill, showing how far away you are from your next level up. Finally, the sneaking icon now offers a clearer representation of NPC detection, much like in Skyrim.

Combat

Combat has received quite a significant overhaul. Melee weapons now feature a unique move set and combo attacks per weapon type, and blocking has got quite the buff, only staggering you if you are fatigued. That is not the only perk that got a bit of a boost, though! Archery is now actually viable! Arrows shoot faster and many of them have had their damage increased. You can also always collect them from corpses, rather than it being a 50/50. So now your shots pack quite the punch, which your enemies are sure to feel. And now they can show it too! Enemies actually react to being hit, and a bit of blood splatter has been added as well.

Less into combat and more into running around, exploring and chit-chatting with the NPCs? The difficulty settings have also seen an upgrade, having presets instead of being a slider, making it a bit more streamlined. If you are curious about all the other and smaller changes that have been made, I’d suggest checking out the UESP page documenting them.

Graphics & Audio

No doubt, the game looks absolutely amazing. Even on lower settings, it still looks stunning and immersive. Unreal Engine 5 is really doing the game a favour. As said before, the new character models look great and a lot more diverse than before. The lighting and visual effects have been overhauled, new environmental effects have been added and NPC lip-syncing has been improved.

An oblivion gate on ultra settings — Oblivion Gate sure looks good on those ultra settings

This is where we get to the “but”. Oh boy does the game run terribly on my PC, despite being above the recommended specs (my PC specs are listed at the bottom of this article). Inside of cities, I get a “crisp” 40FPS on Medium settings. Out in the world, maybe 20-30FPS. Thanks to some mods, I can squeeze out an extra 10-20FPS at times, but even that is inconsistent. So, unfortunately, I’ll have to wait for an optimization patch or two.

The audio, however, is as remarkable as it is in the original. The music fits the ambiance so well, still hitting the way it did back then. Be it strolling around a field, fighting goblins in a cave or just hanging out in a tavern, a song will always be there to enhance your experience. As stated before, while a lot of the original voice lines are the same, some new voice actors have been cast to add more variety to the characters. Now every race and gender combination has a unique voice to them. Some immersive environmental sounds have been added too, like birds chirping, owls hooting and the likes. Really makes you want to sit down and just appreciate the vibes while on your journey.

Scenic view of Cheydinhal with its castle and towers, surrounded by lush trees and mountains in the distance under a clear sky. — Cheydinhal can be enjoyed just as easily on the low settings too!

Longevity

What can I say? It’s an Elder Scrolls game, of course you will find hours upon hours of entertainment in it. Be it the main quest, the seemingly endless amount of side quests, or the many, many, MANY guild quests you can take on, you will hardly run out of things to do. Not only that, but since the original DLCs are now part of the base game, you get even MORE content without spending an extra dime! The Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine DLCs alone will provide you with many hours of content and gameplay.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, at least for me, this game hits right into the nostalgia feels. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t shed a small tear when it actually got announced. Apart from the frame rate issues, the game really does have the same feel as the original Oblivion had. At least, unlike the original, it doesn’t crash every 4 minutes if you look at it the wrong way (at least not for me). I really, truly love the game, with all of its quirks and mechanics and whatnot. I could sit here and repeat myself over and over again, or I can just make it simple.
Game = Good. Enough said, right?

I did purchase the Deluxe Edition, and though I have yet to check out the new quests, the art book looks stunning. It’s a chonky 10GB and has artwork for a majority of the things in the game. To me, that alone is worth spending an extra tenner for the upgrade, but that decision is entirely up to you. Trust me, the base version will definitely have more than enough content and will serve you well as is.

With that being said, there is only one question left: Morrowind Remastered when?!?

Regardless, today The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered gets a big thumbs up and with it, a Thumb Culture Platinum Award.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.

While I’m waiting for an optimization patch, I’ll be playing more Synergy. You can check out the article for that game here.

PC specs:
Intel Core i7 12700K
GeForce RTX 3070
32GB DDR4 3600 RAM
Samsung 980 PRO 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD

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Charlie

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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered – PC Review