Oblivion Remastered reminds me of the fun old Bethesda games from the mid-2000s but it still has some bugs from the new UE5 engine.
People say the best Elder Scrolls game is the first one you play. Alex McHugh from Gamefusionusa loved Morrowind and told everyone why it was great. I tried playing Morrowind again and saw why it was important but it felt too old and slow for me. Now, with Oblivion Remastered, some friends say Skyrim is their first Elder Scrolls game. I think Oblivion made the style of open-world games we have today but they think it was just an early step before the real great game came.
I’m not too upset about it. Skyrim is a very popular game. People love it on many devices like PC or even a smart fridge. It’s popular because it’s deep and fun. Even new players can enjoy it. I have played it for many hours maybe hundreds or thousands. To me Skyrim was the first step Bethesda made before making Starfield. This is my own opinion. After playing Oblivion Remastered for an hour I almost thought the same.
In the Imperial Sewers where the Oblivion tutorial happens I saw many small bugs I had never seen before. Characters got stuck in walls talked at the same time loudly and faces looked weird. Bethesda bugs are normal but seeing so many fast was annoying. It was worse than I remembered. I thought maybe Virtuos changed the game to make a joke instead of a real copy which felt bad. Luckily after the tutorial the game worked fine with just the usual small bugs. I was happy to be wrong about my guess.
After one emperor dies I start the main story that I know well. The main character in Oblivion is called the Hero of Kvatch but that name isn’t quite right. You are a hero but not the only hero. You are not chosen like the Dragonborn in Skyrim. You are more like the Lone Wanderer from Fallout 3. Your future is open and you can choose what to do. People might remember you as good or bad but that doesn’t make you a true hero or villain. Even though good people in the game need your help the story would still happen the same way without you.
Unlike Fallout 4 Oblivion’s main story is not annoying if you ignore it and do random side quests instead. You can finish the main story in about 4 or 5 hours if you want but it’s just a way to get out of prison and explore the world. Even though the world is in danger there are many other things to do like helping a vampire finding a missing painter or looking for a lost fork. I’m just someone who got out of jail and I want to collect potatoes.
The fun in Oblivion’s quests comes from using your brain and talking to people not just fighting. The game gives you a general idea of what to do next but you have to read books and listen carefully to find clues. Unlike other games where side quests show up as a clear list in Oblivion you find quests by chance like hearing rumors in conversations. You can choose which group quests to do when they fit your character. This makes your journey feel natural and you never know exactly where you’ll end up. There’s no hurry you’re free to explore wherever you want.
I like Oblivion’s dungeons more than Skyrim’s crypts. They look better now with the remaster. The new lighting makes caves and forts feel spooky but also warm with torches or magic light. Oblivion’s map is bigger than Skyrim’s but small meetings are special. For example Alga in Bruma doesn’t have a quest but she lives with a man she won’t marry in the big chapel. Every character talks in a way that shows who they are inside. These little things make Cyrodiil feel close and personal unlike Skyrim or Starfield.
Oblivion feels more like a real medieval world than Skyrim. The castles in Cyrodiil look like old European castles, knights ride horses on the roads and monks live quietly in their buildings. But when you go through an Oblivion Gate everything changes. You enter a scary fiery world with tall dark towers and a red sky. This world looks like something from a horror game and is made even more amazing with new graphics technology. The ground is covered in lava and the place feels huge and dangerous.
Oblivion is fun because it mixes normal things with crazy things. You can sleep at an inn or buy things from a blacksmith and then suddenly walk into a dangerous place like hell. The game lets you enjoy both the normal and the fantasy parts. When you create your character you pick a class, race and birth sign. These choices help you start but you can still play however you want. One day, you might be a sneaky archer the next a knight with a big sword or a magic user who uses fire spells all in the same game.
Bethesda games are not very good at fighting. Before Fallout 4 and Starfield the combat was especially bad. In Oblivion fighting felt like just swinging a weapon over and over. But the remastered version has better timing for attacks. There are new animations that make using different weapons more interesting and shooting feels improved. The only problem is that enemies sometimes walk through my shield and still hit me.
This is a remaster not a remake. But this remaster has more big changes than other remasters made by Virtuos. For people who like Oblivion good news now we can run faster. This is the most popular change. Even this small change can make you play differently and change how you use your character’s skills. There are also bigger changes to the game too.
In Oblivion Remastered leveling up is easier. You don’t have to carefully manage your skills to get good attribute points. The game looks at all your skills and lets you put points where you want. The old system had some charm but it was flawed. Now getting stronger is better and not a problem.
Oblivion Remastered has many small fixes and changes Some easy to notice and some only for big fans. Some new things might seem unnecessary but still help. For example the new spell Clairvoyance shows you the way which is helpful when going through tricky dungeons even if you already have a compass. But one strange thing is that the game still uses level scaling which means enemies grow with you. This makes the game harder later on but finding weak-level items like Chillrend early on can still be painful just like before.
Oblivion Remastered is not a perfect game because the original game wasn’t perfect. The dungeons look the same as before but they are still nice breaks between quests. The Oblivion Gates are exciting at first but soon they get boring. Seeing their orange light makes me unhappy. Skyrim has a similar problem but its dragons are more common. Fighting dragons is more fun than fighting the same enemies in Oblivion. At least in Skyrim I can just shout to kill the dragons.
I'm trying to get used to how Oblivion Remastered looks compared to how I remember the original from the 2000s. Uriel Septim VII looks great but not like I recall. The Khajits and Argonians also look very different more like digital artwork than old-school fantasy creatures. It's not bad just not what I’m used to. The updated graphics make it clear how much the game has changed and it’s a bit hard for me to let go of the nostalgia. But I doubt new players like Jamie care about any of that.
Unreal Engine 5 has had a tough year. Many games using it like Nightingale and Stalker 2 have struggled with performance problems. Sadly, Oblivion Remastered is no different. I’ve noticed stuttering flickering shadows, and weird visual glitches. These issues might be okay in new cutting-edge games but not in a remake of a 19-year-old RPG. On top of that the game’s original beautiful watercolor-like look seems lost in favor of overly sharp graphics and I’m not sure it was worth it.
Virtuos took a gentler approach to remastering Oblivion than I expected. After seeing how plain and lifeless Starfield looked I was worried they might ruin Oblivion's unique feel. I was afraid it would lose its charm and look too smooth and boring but thankfully that didn’t happen. There are some changes like new character backgrounds an updated interface and added voice lines but they’re not a big deal to me. Did Oblivion really need a remaster? Probably not. It’s old but still very playable. Honestly Morrowind needs a remaster more. Still if we’re getting an Oblivion remaster I’m glad it turned out like this.
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