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Okay, so Virtuous has not officially revealed The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered… yet, but with the developer’s official website hosting screenshots and information about the upcoming RPG redux, they might as well have.
While we can’t judge the game from a few leaked screenshots and some fancy box art, what we’ve seen of the Elder Scrolls IV touch-up already has me worried. Back on the Xbox 360 and PS3, Oblivion offered a look that no other games did. While almost every game was doused in brown colour pallets—remember the George Lucas venture Fracture—Oblivion was refreshingly green.
Set in Cyrodil, Oblivion featured lush rolling hills absolutely filled with trees and foliage as far as the eye could see. It was almost glaringly bright with colour, piercing the eye like a watercolour painting come to life. It was fantastically fantasy, and the complete opposite of Morrowind’s ash-filled wasteland of Vvardenfall.
In the screenshots we’ve seen of Oblivion Remastered so far, the colour has been ripped out. Technically, the new remaster looks great: asset quality is fantastic and the game’s beautiful bodies of water even sport realistic reflections, but it’s completely different from what Oblivion was originally designed to be.
Now, one thing that has been improved is the quality of faces in the new Elder Scrolls remaster. We’ve all been creeped out by the game’s uncomfortable polystyrene heads and their beady-eyed stares, but it’s also part of Oblivion’s charm. Often-times, Elder Scrolls IV feels like playing through some sort of prank: it’s AI is busted, it’s line delivery is awful and a lot of its gameplay mechanics are fairly busted—but that’s the charm!
Now, Oblivion does have some amazing quests such as the entire Dark Brotherhood questline, A Brush With Death and the ending of the Thieves Guild. However, it’s also hampered by a pretty mediocre main quest, largely forgettable dungeons and myriad other issues.
I’m very excited to give Oblivion Remastered a go, I adore the busted 360 RPG with all my heart, but I’m also more than a little worried. How far is the team going? Is it just visuals? Has the voice acting changed? Will the Adoring Fan look as insane as he did before? Can I still spawn a million watermelons and lock myself out of the main city?
Well, we’ll find all of this out later this month, it seems. With the game allegedly set to shadowdrop on April 21, 2025, we don’t have long to find out!
