I know there’s great love for Oblivion (I never played it when it was new), and of course Skyrim is the gold standard for new fans (I played the shit out of that and it was my first entry into the elder scrolls back when it came out 14 years ago…) but I really feel like this shadow drop of a half assed remake is just priming everyone to lower their expectations for the likely dumpster fire that is The Elder Scrolls VI.
I know its old hat nonsense of a complaint but whatever Bethesda used to be it stopped being that 20 years ago and we’re all just stuck thinking they’ll put out some new masterpiece when in reality all the talent they had back in the day has likely left for other jobs and they are now just a shitty company among countless other shitty companies putting profit over anything else and stifling anyone who might actually have good ideas on how to make good games (how unsurprising).
You don’t seem to know what a remaster is. Most importantly, it’s not a remake and the two terms are not interchangeable.
Remaster -> Take same assets, enhance it (better textures, better shaders, etc.), add some QoL fixes (new hardware support, etc.), but the base (and most of the time the engine) stays the same. Remake -> Take same idea, redo it (new models, new technologies, etc.). May or may not have an engine change
Reboot -> Take same base, new ideas, and redo it (new models, new technologies, etc.). May or may not have an engine changeEdit :
A remaster example : Titan Quest Anniversary Edition -> Same game, remastered textures, add large screen support, among others.
A remake example : Oblivion Remastered (ironic name) -> New engine, new textures and models, but with globally the same idea.
A reboot example : DmC: Devil May Cry (the 2013 game)
Lower expectations…?
Bethesda Game Studios has been on the decades-long trend of watering down all their proper RPG elements. Morrowind is significantly more jank in combat and movement than Oblicion. Oblivion significantly more jank than Skyrim.
However, Skyrim is over simplified compared to Oblivion in all of its RPG mechanics, and has removed a number of gameplay features that were previously present (e.g. Spell crafting). In turn Oblivion is itself more mechanically shallow than Morrowind, significantly lacking in such things as speech options.
The Oblivion Remaster is so more a reminder of something we’ll never get anymore; an open world RPG that isn’t as weighed down as Morrowind and not as over-simplified as Skyrim (though honestly complex NPC interactions need to come back from Morrowind).
TES VI will likely have better combat than Skyrim, but still incredibly dated compared to other games, and mechanics that can barely be called “RPG” anymore.
Replacing spell crafting with blacksmithing makes sense for the setting. It would have been nice to have something a bit deeper to replace it though.
If anything this has raised my bar for TES 6. I didn’t play 4 just as you did and sunk an ungodly amount of time into 5. I also played fallout 3 at the time of launch so I feel like I’m fairly versed in Bethesdas formula.
The progress from 4 to 5 is obvious. They put a lot of love into making Skyrim better than its predecessor in tons of ways. With the absolute flop of Starfield, they’re putting all their chips into TES 6 and they know it. They’re going to stick to the core gameplay that everyone expects, but how they expand and improve upon it is really what will make or break them. If they get the story telling down, it’s all up to the mechanics of the game and design of the world.
My bar has absolutely raised by them putting this remaster out.
I don’t think I agree on them going all in for TES6, I think oblivion and the upcoming fallout 3 remake (confirmed by court docs ages ago) are probably going to lean into monetized mods, just like skyrim has been for the last decade. Skyrim’s creation club made it a pseudo live service game, where they can maintain bethesdas tiny team size (Relative to most AAA devs) and still get ongoing payout for a decade or more, letting players generate new content to buy into. Optimistically this means they’ll have plenty of funding for TES6 to hire some decent writing staff and put together something great that’s presumably been at least thought about the last 14 years since Skyrim, but it might just be going into Microsoft’s coffers.
It’s a remaster of a game from 2006 with a fresh coat of paint and some QOL changes and that’s basically all it ever could be. 70% of the game did not age well and they honestly did the best they could. If they did a complete remake and “modernized” the game all the old-school fans would be pissed. If they kept it as true to the original as possible besides a facelift they’d make it harder for new players to want to pick it up. I feel like a good 7/10 was the best they could shoot for under most circumstances.
And if you ask anyone where Bethesda fell off, depending on which game was their first, they will all give you a different answer. For me Morrowind and Oblivion are the best in the series and that’s with over 500 hours in Skyrim. They’ve been dumbing their games down with each new iteration since the 90s as they try to “modernize” the newest game each time and reach new audiences. Like, good luck playing Morrowind or Daggerfall these days without losing your patience in a matter of hours. And Morrowind especially is barely playable without mods these days.
I still hated Starfield, though. Gave it the old college try and left so underwhelmed I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about the story.
Just to clarify one thing while i agree with you on some stuff this is not a remake it’s a remaster. the OG game engine is running underneath and UE5 for just the updated models and terrain. The fact they are charging so much for it is what kills me. What this should have been is a $30 game of the year edition and maybe an discount or a free upgrade of you owned the original like they did with doom and quake remasters that nightdive did.
Wasn’t there a couple of modders who was making the older elder scrolls game into the Skyrim engine? Wouldn’t it be easier on Bethesda to just hire them and other talented modders to do it?
Morrowind was my first Elderscrolls game. I loved morrowind and I would buy an remaster of it.
Oblivion came out when I was an adult. I sunk thousands of hours into it when it came out. It was my favorite game by far at that time.
Skyrim I didn’t enjoy. It was fine, I guess. But by the time Skyrim came around I started to see Bethesda change. Fallout 4 and then Fallout 76 sealed the deal for me turning from a Bethesda fanboy to a hater.
Overall, I do not believe Bethesda will ever put out another new original game that is polished or quality. Bethesda rips off their biggest supporters and lies to their customers.
That being said. I’m very happy with this remake. Because it’s been 20 years since I first played, I genuinely only remember a few strong moments. All the minor quests and even the main story I barely remember the details of. So, it’s nice to revisit the game as a more mature adult. I think they did a fantastic job keeping the feel the same but it looks great considering.
Can’t run it on my LegionGo that’s my only complaint. I’m happy with having bought the remastered version of Oblivion because I’m sure as hell never buying a new original game from Bethesda ever again. Not unless they do an about face.
When I saw the post’s title I was hoping for a good, perhaps even balanced, critique of the remake’s choices, or the underlying engine’s shortcomings, or perhaps even the original designs.
All I got was “dumpster fire”.
There‘s no Oblivion remake. Go to the Steam Page and carefully read word for word what it is you‘re talking about.
I play Fantasy Critic with some friends. We allow remakes in our league but not remasters. This one counts as a remake for purposes of this site, with a flag on it to note that it was contentious. This game definitely blurs some lines on some definitions.
Out of interest, how does that site classify Age of Empires Definitive Edition (and aoe2:DE and aoe3:DE) and Age of Mythology: Retold?
I don’t know. As far as I can tell, it’s only searchable for the current calendar year, and we can view games we had on our roster in the same league in previous years. No one had any of those games on their roster. The site differentiates between remasters, remakes, and reimaginings, with a reimagining being something like Resident Evil 2 or Final Fantasy VII Remake. We used to not allow remakes, but we changed the rules for our league starting last year (personally, I voted against it, but I was outvoted). The league commissioner can always override a decision that the site makes when categorizing a game.
Fantasy Critic
Wait what? Is this like fantasy sports, but with video game reviews? Do you draft developers or some shit?
Yes, it is fantasy sports but with video games. You draft games, and your points are determined by their score on Open Critic. Over 70 gains points, under 70 loses points. Every point over 90 is worth double. The way my friends and I structure our league, we have one counter pick during the draft, and the counter picker gets the inverse of the points of that game; so if I have a friend who drafts Kirby Air Riders, and I counter pick it, and it scores 67, my friend loses 3 points and I gain 3 points. If I counter pick a game that scores positive points, I lose those points instead.
The only game on my roster that has released so far is Knights in Tight Spaces, which only got me 6 points (I aim for about 13 points per game), because it scored a 76 on Open Critic, and I was perhaps a bit too risky when I drafted Pony Island 2: Panda Circus, because I got counter picked on it, and it doesn’t have a release date, so I might be stuck with a game that scores 0 points due to not releasing this year.
But you don’t always know about every release a year in advance (I mean for games that weren’t announced yet at the time of your draft)… Are there “seasons”?
Lol sorry, I’ve just never heard of this and I’m intrigued.
Edit: clarity
Correct, you don’t know that. You can speculate on releases, like I did with Pony Island 2, and get counter picked as a punishment for the risk. As long as it’s in the site’s database, it’s fair game. I drafted “Unannounced 3D Mario Game” this year, but then I picked up “Unannounced 3D Donkey Kong Game” after the draft for 1 in-game dollar (no one else put in a bid for it), as a hedge, since the rumor was that either a Mario or a Donkey Kong game would be made by the Mario Odyssey team for the Switch 2 launch. No one counter-picked Mario, so I’m allowed to drop it, and the Donkey Kong entry automatically updated to Bananza. The “season” is a calendar year. We do our draft early in January, and typically the first release of the year will be like halfway through the month, and the score that each game earns is whatever score it has at the stroke of midnight on January 1st.
Because we don’t know every release a year in advance, A) this game got a lot harder starting back in 2022, because that’s when game marketing cycles got way shorter, and B) some of the best reviewing games of 2025 probably won’t even be announced until this coming June.
“Unannounced 3D Mario Game”
Ahhhhhh OK, I see…
Do you guys curate this yourself, or is there a website or something that facilitates it?
They have their own database. If there’s a release or a rumor they don’t know about, you can suggest one, but they ask you to cite your sources. If it’s got a Steam page and you provide that link, they’ll basically add it right away, which is what happened when I got Total Chaos added. Fantasy Critic also gives league commissioners a lot of power to house rule just about anything.
It’s a remaster. What’s the problem?
half assed remake
which is exactly why they called it a remaster. it was never their intention to remake the game.
Personally I think most of the stuff that went wrong with Starfield were design choices related to space travel and many many planets, which won’t be an issue with TES of Fallout going forward. So if they stay in their lane I don’t see any reason why they can’t keep churning out decent titles in those series, even if they maybe don’t reach the same heights.
Listen, as long as ESVI ends up being highly modable and has a healthy community behind it to make the mods, it’ll be good enough for me.
Exactly. If the modding community for Starfield was bigger, it could be an incredible game. I still have hope it will grow, but ES6 will definitely be different
This is such a silly take. After Starfield, I was still excited, but had very little “faith” in the next elder scrolls. After this remaster, I’m even more excited, and I think there is a good chance ES6 will be an absolutely beautiful game that I will play for years after its release.
They weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel with this remaster, they merely demonstrated its possible to have classic BGS mechanics WITH modern day graphics and animations. Starfield made it seem like they had to choose between one or the other for future games, but this shows us we can have both!
It is literally not a remake, and how is it half assed? I have a low to mid range PC and the game runs smooth as hell, and it’s gorgeous.
Tried to run it on Wine Lutris and the open world ran like shit.
Gamers is it time to retire the 2060?
The 2060 is a 7 year old entry level card.
Have you tried the config tweak to disable Lumen?
https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivionremastered/mods/183
This one helps with lower VRAM apparently:
Try running it on an operating system that the game is native to and not one that doesn’t properly support nvidia
Asking someone to switch to Windows or mac on Lemmy. Feeling bold today sir? Maybe devs should just optimize their games
You get neither and company’s get money to keep neglecting both of your wants.
What gfx setting are you using?
I think Bethesda has definitely fallen off in recent years, but I am a bit confused by the point this post is getting at. We all learned at launch that Oblivion is a remaster, not a remake, and it’s literally the original game running under the hood with a new coat of paint and some minor tweaks.
It’s not a half-assed remake, it’s a pretty high-effort remaster. But I think it’s a bad example to use of how the company isn’t getting better when the point of the remaster was to change as little of the core game as possible.
Starfield is what should be killing everyone’s expectations of Elder Scrolls 6.
The remaster was also made externally, so whatever the point being made here is weird twice over.
