By Christopher Hardy

Oblivion has recently been remastered by Bethesda to the surprise of many fans of the Elder Scrolls series. This remastered version of the game fixed many of the bugs in the original game released in 2006. By giving it more of a graphical enhancement in line with video games in recent years, Bethesda was able to let old and new Oblivion players feel as if they were experiencing the game for the first time. In this post, I will be going over what I have found most interesting in the remastered version of the game and what I don’t like about it.

Controversy 

When a game first comes out there are always some that have something bad to say about its release and Oblivion is not an exception. When it comes to the Oblivion remaster many older players believe that there is no point in putting in the effort and remastering Oblivion and see it as Bethesda wanting to just profit on the players like its other remasters. While others believe that Bethesda should be working on The Elder Scrolls VI. I, on the other hand, believe that it’s good that Bethesda is remastering the older games in a way to build up the hype for the sixth game.

Graphics

As I said above oblivion has had a massive improvement in its graphics compared to when the game first came out. When I first played Oblivion I didn’t mind how the graphics looked since it was normal for an older game. When it came to the character design in the remastered version you can tell that there was more detail put into how each of the NPCs look. They had included more variations to things like hair and more options for facial structure. The new graphics of the game make me appreciate the Elder Scrolls team at Bethesda showing just how much they care for the series. 

Story

The story of the game hasn’t been changed from the original as some players like myself have worried about. The game is still set in the third era in Cyrodil, a province of Tamriel. The game follows you trying to thwart the Daedric cult known as the Mythic Dawn’s effort to kill all the last heirs of Emperor Uriel Septim and open up the gate to the demonic realm known as Oblivion. While also polishing some of the other side stories in the game such as for the different guilds and NPC requests, making them easier to progress through. 

Combat

The combat in the game has been refined, making it easier for attacks to land on enemies. While also making the magic in the game easier for a player to cast upon unlocking a spell after increasing the skill. When it comes to increasing the skills itself it seems to be slower compared to the original. When I played the original Oblivion I was able to get level 100 on the blade relatively quickly. However, with the remastered game, I haven’t even made it to level 80 after hours of playing the game and completing various quests. 

Tips

I found out from watching many new players start playing the game that they struggle with the lockpicking feature in the game. This is understandable since when I had originally played the game I didn’t understand how it worked and worked auto attempt until all my lockpicks broke. I found that later in the game after reaching level 10 you will be able to do a quest to obtain a skeleton key, this is essentially an unbreakable lockpick that allows you to break into a chest, door, etc. to start the quest you can visit the Shrine of Nocturnal and activate the quest.

My Experience

Having played the original game, the remake is by far an improvement. Aside from the graphics that made the game more appealing to the eye, there have been many fixes to the game that made the game unplayable before. There have been times when I have been in the middle of a quest and the game would just suddenly crash, making me have to restart at the beginning. Ever since I played the remastered version of Oblivion I haven’t crashed a single time or have been stuck on a quest because of a glitch in the game. 

Closing

Overall, I enjoy playing the Oblivion remake and think that Bethesda made the right decision to work on the remake of Oblivion. Having the game fixed by removing all the bugs and glitches with the original game makes people build up hype for upcoming Elder Scrolls content by reaching out to the audience’s favorite games in the series. After playing the game for hours I loved how they had added more detail to the game, making the game more enjoyable for me. 

Comment your thoughts below on your thoughts on the Oblivion remaster.