24) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (2025)

Before starting this year's challenge, I had a strong desire to replay Oblivion, as one often does. Originally released in 2006, Oblivion feels like a remnant of a bygone era, one where the lines between console and PC gaming were blurring like never before, and games truly started to feel open and free. While I had played the previous entry in the Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind, it was Oblivion that truly sank its claws into me. While I've played Bethesda games since that have borrowed heavily from the foundation laid out here, Oblivion's always stood as the near perfect balance of player freedom and developer experimentation. Sure, there are things in the game that, by modern standards, seem silly or outdated, but that's all a part of the charm that players not only accepted, but came to love. So, when the Oblivion remaster was leaked, then announced and shadow dropped, I wasted no time in indulging in the perfect excuse to revisit a game that, despite its flaws, I love dearly.

Remakes and remasters are, by their nature, tricky things. You can either update the graphics and release the game as close to its original form, or rebuild it from the ground up. Doing the former can lead to people calling the work lazy, or risk alienating new players with outdated systems. Doing the latter risks alienating the original fans, especially if tweaking the old systems changes the core gameplay. For example, when I played Soul Reaver, it made some concessions for new players, notably in the controls, but otherwise remained fairly faithful. On the other hand, when I've attempted to play the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane trilogy, something just felt off. I later found out, via an interview with the original lead programmer, Andrew Gavin, that the remake had changed how jumping worked, and thus, in his estimation, botched the execution. It's a fine line to walk, is what I'm trying to emphasize.

This, I feel, is where the Oblivion remaster stumbles. While it is, in many ways, a faithful update, it nonetheless updates certain aspects that fundamentally alter the experience. One such example is in how your character levels up. In the original game, after completing the tutorial, you choose your major skills. These skills start off a bit higher, and you only make progress toward leveling up when you increase one of these skills. While this can make it easy to farm for levels, you're discouraged from this in another key way. When you level, you can choose to increase your primary stats, choosing three to increase, giving larger bonuses for the stats associated with skills you actively use. It forced you to pay attention and level your skills in such a way as to optimize your bonuses. The remaster, much like more modern Bethesda games, simplifies this a lot, and leveling any skill will progress you toward your next level, which now gives you points to allocate to your primary stats. I'm explaining it poorly, I feel, but in essence, they over-simplified a system that now allows you to feel far more powerful early on, which diminishes the experience.

In a lot of ways, the team leans into some of the oddities and jokes about the game. There's an NPC who is notorious for saying their line, then doing another take, complete with the voice actor clearly signaling the start of a new take. It's one random NPC, not associated with any major quest, and was obviously left in by mistake. The remaster retains this, while also adding new mouth animations to match the clearly unintended extra lines. This is all well and good, except for the fact that they actually brought in new voice actors to do new takes to try and make it so you don't hear the same five voices on constant rotation. It's such a weird way of trying to make it feel like the original game while also updating it in ways that, ultimately, detract from the charm. A lot of the fun and, indeed a lot of the soul of the original is in the jank and unintended humor that accidentally existed. When you change things, like adding physics to paint brushes so they don't just hover in midair, it feels like you're taking away a part of the game's identity.

Ranting aside, I still greatly enjoyed my time with Oblivion. Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart's vocal performances are still a treat to this day, and the music, composed by Jeremy Soule, is still iconic. The freedom given to the player to play how they want is, in my opinion, better here than in Skyrim. The very fact that I was able to make it through the game using my fists is refreshing and mostly satisfying. There's a certain floatiness to combat that makes it so the impact of each hit feels almost non-existent, but that is in keeping with the original.

Oblivion also brings to mind another question that I've been struggling with while doing this challenge, which is how to define when I've beaten a game. Games are unique in that you can't just play until you reach the end of the credits and say you're done. Many games have content that only becomes available after you beat the game, while others have optional side content that completely overshadows the main story. Indeed, Oblivion takes this problem a step further by not having the credits roll when you complete the main story, so how does one say that they beat the game? For me, I decided to play through the main story, the Shivering Isles, and all of the factions you can join.

The main story, while certainly not bad, does come off as a bit underwhelming overall. Considering you start as a prisoner with a not so chance encounter with the Emperor, involves you tracking down a mysterious, lost heir to the throne, and sees you travelling to the realm of Oblivion, it's a bit odd how little you impact the final battle. I will give it points for having a point where a villain begins to monologue and you're free to move around, which gave me the immense pleasure of just walking up and starting to beat his ass with my fists. However, it's in the optional faction questlines where the story truly shines.

The Arena and Fighter's guild lines are your pretty standard affairs. The Mage's guild is similarly pretty standard, though I will never stop loving the idea of becoming the Archmage while not being a mage. The idea that all the wizards saw me punch my way through problems and knew better than to question it is perfect. The true standouts, to me, lie in the Shivering Isles and the Dark Brotherhood questlines. The Shivering Isles is an amazing journey into madness, with heavy inspiration from Alice in Wonderland, with Wes Johnson providing an iconic performance as Sheogorath, perfectly selling the goofiness and menace of the character. The Dark Brotherhood storyline, which has you join a group of assassins, is a ton of fun. Whether it's breaking into prison to kill someone who taunted you, being the murderer in a murder mystery full of idiots, or realizing you've been little more than a pawn in larger game, it's a joy from beginning to end.

Ultimately, I feel as though the Oblivion remaster is at odds with itself. Updating a game that is so clearly a product of its time was always going to be a risky move. It changes just enough that fans of the original would likely prefer the original, while also not changing enough to warrant much interest from modern audiences. At its best, it made me yearn to play the original, bugs and all, while at its worst it felt like a hollow shell of a game I loved. I still enjoyed my time with it, but couldn't help but feel like it had no identity of its own. I feel the worst sin it commits is that it made me lose interest in the next game in the franchise, as even updating an existing game can't escape the over-simplification of mechanics that I have come to dislike in modern games.