Oblivion Remaster Review for Steam
When I first heard an Oblivion Remaster was dropping, I had a tempered response. Like, ‘yaaaaayyyyy.’ Honestly, I couldn’t allow myself to invest in the news because I know it wouldn’t be released until 2032 (if we were lucky).
But then Bing-bop-boom-boom-boom-bop-bam!
It dropped. It arrived. It was here. And Earth would never be the same.
The launch happened so fast that I barely had time to register what was happening before my debit card was being charged. I definitely didn’t do any research. I just reacted, striking like a starving hyena and laughing in a disturbing wheezey sort of way.
To take it back to the beginning, in a world before time began, 2006, Oblivion was my entry into the Elder Scrolls universe. Over the last decade and a half, I’ve gone from TES IV to III, then back to IV, then V, dabbled in Online, then back to V, then as of 2023, IV again (I grabbed it during the Steam Black Friday sale for $3.99…$3.99!!!)
It’s fair to say I love Oblivion and, having just replayed it, was fully prepared to play the exact same game again (Todd Howard knows I’ve literally bought Skyrim five times, so why wouldn’t I buy Oblivion three times 🙄). That being said, I was also hoping that there might be something new in store.
This review is coming a little late, and I know YouTube is already saturated with first impressions and thought pieces. But I wanted to take my time. I wanted to savor my return to Cyrodiil. I wanted to walk instead of fast travel (though sprinting is now a thing). Four weeks after launch, here are my thoughts, reactions, and tepid takes on the Oblivion Remaster.
Opening Impressions
Starting off, the opening cutscene blew me away. The visuals were stunning, but updated graphics are the bare minimum for a remaster.
Getting to the character creation was where a lot of og’s would see the changes. I love that they removed gender identifiers, replacing them with “body types 1 and 2.” I’m all here for it. It’s a small change with big implications for both inclusivity and, importantly for this remaster, role-playing depth. Elder Scrolls as a series is deeply rooted in table-top games, and character creation used to actually translate into serious differences in play styles. All the love for Skyrim, but tabletop mechanics are no longer a feature. Oblivion was the last game in the series that tried to remain loyal to this heritage and I think the change to both gender identifiers and home origin leans into back story creation as much as making a cool looking character.
Rather than having the gender of the character change stats, that mechanic was moved to choosing a character’s home or origin. Again, I think this adds even more depth to role-playing. Now, rather than starting out in the dungeon with a completely blank slate, players can have an idea of where they came from and how they wound up in the White Tower jail. For example, I decided to play as an Imperial mage from the Colovia Region, with a backstory that I ran away from my crappy farm life to try to join the mage’s guild, but landed myself in the White Tower dungeons when I got accidentally got caught up in a tavern brawl and thrown in jail. In the original Oblivion I could still keep the head canon of the tavern brawl, but I didn’t give much thought to my home before the game OR how that choice might affect my major and minor skills and attributes. I really like this!
Can we all just take a moment and acknowledge the glow-up for the beast races? The Argonians and Khajiit look incredible, with textures that actually demonstrate there are different kinds of Argonians and Khajiit.
For this playthrough, I decided to go all in on the roleplay aspect. I chose to play as an imperial player since I was in Cyrodil, and because I’ve never played one before. I usually go for a Dark Elf Nightblade/ Stealth Archer situation, but this time I wanted to try an Imperial, who was only a mid mage, but would discover a previously unknown talent for punching (this only sort of happened).
Performance and Graphics
After leaving character creation, the shine came off the Oblivion Gate. The Remaster has not been kind to my PC. And don’t even think about playing it on Steam Deck. Lag, crashes, and stuttery frame rates made it a frustrating experience to start. I spent a good chunk of time, over an hour, fiddling with the settings to find a balance between performance and beauty.
Visually, the Remaster is gorgeous (when everything loads properly) but it’s also…beige.
Maybe it’s because I’ve recently replayed the original, but everything feels like it has a muted, brownish cast. It differentiates the aesthetic from Skyrim’s blue tones, which I appreciate in theory, but I still miss the vibrancy of the original. I’ve already seen mods aimed at restoring the original saturation, so I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. I’m curious about this choice, because it also gave the game a Kingdom Come: Deliverance vibe. Which again, is fine?
Dialogue and Voice Acting
One thing I’m glad they didn’t touch was the awkward dialogue interactions. Conversations still freeze the game and zoom in way too close on people’s faces. The facial expressions are still unnatural and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love there is barely a difference between someone’s “I like that” face and their “Stop talking” face.
Holy moly, there are new voice actors! In a game where four people originally voiced every single character, suddenly hearing a Khajit that doesn’t sound like KGB spy was… jarring…in good way? I definitely recognized some voices from Skyrim too, which was kind of fun because it made it feel like the colonies were blending together in this remaster. Like maybe the descendants of characters in Cyrodil relocated to SKyrim, at least that will be my personal head canon.
Knowing there were new voices, I made a point to talk to every Khajiit, Argonian, and Breton I came across. Normally, by the third or fourth playthrough of a game, I stop talking to NPCs altogether. But for the Remaster I’ve been running up to everyone to ask about the Grey Fox.
Combat and Stealth
Combat feels easier in the Remaster compared to the original (at least at the Adept level). Enemies’ attacks seem slower and they also telegraph their attacks more, which gave me a better chance to work on my block skill. Archery has been upgraded to feel more like Skyrim’s system, which makes it hard to resist going stealth archer again. I’m really trying to go for a mysticism mage – unarmed combat build, but stealth archer…it just, it just is.
Speaking of combat being easier, in Skyrim, one alert enemy means everyone is on high alert. In Oblivion? Not so much. I can sneak attack one guy, and the guy sitting next to him won’t even blink. Sneaking can always get a little over powered in TES but its obvious the devs tweaked the settings, making players harder to detect, and making stealth missions a lot less challenging (and making that stealth archer that much more inevitable).
One change I honestly didn’t even notice is that enemies now appear as markers on the quest compass. Maybe that’s because I never remember to check the compass or maps since I use clairvoyance so much. This means I still run into rooms full of enemies without thinking. But since only one ever seems to agro at a time, this is not as disastrous as it could be.
It’s an interesting choice to include enemies in the quest compass, especially since there is a detect life spell. I’m specifically mentioning this because I’m actually secretly building to a big conspiracy theory regarding the Remaster, so if you hold on, I swear there is a point.
Leveling System and Attributes
The leveling system has received one of the biggest overhauls in the Remaster.
Major and minor skills are still in place, but now minor skills contribute more to level-ups. This is clearly a move towards Skyrim’s everything-levels-you style, which I’ll talk about more in my conspiracy theory section.
The biggest change to leveling is that the old attribute bonus system is gone. In the original, players would only level up if they leveled their major skills. Levelling up meant picking three attributes to apply points too. Depending on how and where major and minor skills were levelled, the game would automatically assign bonuses for the attributes. This was easily one of the worst and best features of the original. I remember that I didn’t actually figure out how to level until my second or third playthrough, and then once I did, it was like I could see the Matrix.
I had to be strategic. I had to be thinking four levels ahead. I had to have spreadsheets. Because if I wasn’t careful, then the bleeping goblins were going to get overpowered and I was only going to have 30 health.
This system has been removed. The Remaster gives you virtue points to allocate across three attributes per level. Any three attributes, no matter how much I did or did not use them. Players can assign up to five points per attribute, even if it is not one of their favored skills. But this also means it is way easier to max out attributes faster, especially since Endurance is now applied retroactively
I’m a bit torn about this. Leveling used to bea game in itself. On the other, this new system makes character development more flexible—and more accessible. AND it’s clearly a nod to Skyrim fans trying Oblivion for the first time.
Conspiracy Theory
Which brings me to my big conspiracy theory.
THE REMASTER IS NOT FOR OBLIVION FANS, ITS FOR SKYRIM FANS.
That’s not a bad thing.
Skyrim is easily one of the greatest games ever created. It’s untouchable, to the point where no other game has ever come close to it (there are no Skylikes). It is, in its way, perfection.
40/40 x 3.
It is a perfect gateway drug for the casual gamer and the experienced addict.
One of the reasons for this is the accessibility. Babies are born knowing how to play Skyrim like they know Beatles lyrics. What it is not, is a tabletop game. It completely moves away from the complexity that made so many nerds obsessed over TES in the first place.
Going backward in Elder Scrolls is hard. I remember jumping from Oblivion to Morrowind and being filled with rage by the movement speed and the absolutely ridiculous hitboxes. Let me be clear, I’m not gatekeeping when I say that backwards-travel in the franchise is only an act of the devout.
So when I look at the changes the Remaster made, the little shuffles that bridge the gap between the OG and Skyrim it is pretty clear. The Remaster was tweaked to smooth out Oblivion’s rougher mechanics for fans of Skyrim that never got into the earlier games.
And honestly? I’m fine with this. More people are playing this game. More people are talking about Cyrodiil around the watercooler. If I had to give up some of the uniqueness that was Oblivion to get more people to play it, then so be it.
And a part of me wouldn’t mind if they did the same for Morrowind.
Yes. I said it.
Because, hear me out, Morrowind has the best story in the entire Elder Scrolls series. The more people who know about the Nerevarine and Dagoth Ur, the better. I don’t care how they get there.
Bugs, Mods, and the Community
Yes, a lot of the original bugs and glitches have been addressed—but the shift to Unreal Engine 5 for graphics introduced a whole new set of issues. The most common one I ran into was lag time from textures and shaders loading late. It rarely crashed my game, but it happened just enough that I started holding my breath every time I exited a building.
Luckily, the modding community has already started rolling out fixes and enhancements. I’m especially excited to see what people do with color grading, enemy AI, and performance optimization. The TES mod scene has always been one of its strengths, and I expect this Remaster to give it new life.
Final Thoughts
1 Million/10
So those are my thoughts after four weeks with the Oblivion Remaster. It’s still the game I love, but with enough updates to feel fresh—and just enough jank to feel like home.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Obilivion Remastered is available for consoles and PC via Steam.
Related: Reviews by Michelle Jones
I'm a completionist gamer who just needs to find that one last object and clear that final dungeon. I love all video games, from open world sandboxes on a console to a mindless match three on my phone. In addition to gaming and writing, I am a graduate student working on a thesis about the ancient Icelandic Sagas. Feel free to ask me anything about Vikings.
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