Appreciation for the Remaster

Oblivion is my favourite game of all time, and I don't think the Remaster gets enough credit. I get it, its cool to hate on Bethesda these days. They've certainly done enough to warrant it, and I don't think the company is the same anymore, but the Remaster is really well done and its clear there was a lot of love and passion put into it, probably more due to Virtuos to be fair. If you look through the artbook, you can tell there is a lot of appreciation and respect for the OG.

They knew what made Oblivion special and were careful not to change too much but keep that charm in the game, whilst improving and enhancing the weaker areas such as combat, animations, lack of voices etc. The sound design is also top notch. If you play the game with good quality headphones, it's incredibly immersive with crisp and atmospheric audio. Exploring dungeons in particular is phenomenal. On dungeons, I think they made exploring them a lot more fun, despite them being a bit dull layout wise. The sound design mixed with the amazing lighting, reverb and details such as cockroaches, maggots etc make them a joy to explore.

There are technical issues on PC which are unacceptable (I'm on PS5 and haven't really had technical issues so can't comment much) and its very buggy, a lot buggier than the original in my experience.They need to fix this stuff, but if we're looking purely at the game, it's very well done. I don't get the 'UE5 Slop' argument either. The game still has an artstyle to it and is stunning, there was obviously effort put into it. The Khajiit look a bit strange but the races particularly the Dunmer and Argonians look really cool. It would be cool to have an optional reshade though to have more OG colours.

It's amazing how small changes such as reaction animations when hitting enemies, a dodge and more feedback add a LOT to combat. You would have thought Bethesda would have figured that out by now. There is actually weight to swimming too which makes you feel like you're in water, not flying.

On some things I dislike, yeah the censorship. It's dumb, things like adding shorts to the zombies is stupid, especially in relation to a certain characters death. The female form, shall we say, has also been censored and toned down. Because, I don't know, female bodies are offensive or something?

All in all though, they did a fantastic job and it's as good as a remaster as I could've hoped for. Look, it's a 20 year old game, it's dated in a lot of areas and janky as hell. Games have moved on and the open world genre have done things a lot better, even Bethesda have improved since Oblivion. But it's still incredibly unique and there is nothing like it. The radiant AI, the faction and side quests, being able to talk to every NPC, pick up ever item, go in every building, Jeremy Soule's soundtrack.

Some people expected a full ground up remake. I'm not really sure why, Oblivion is beloved game. Why would would you go back and remake an older entry when you are working on Elder Scrolls 6. It makes sense to Remaster, and enhance what was there, maintaining what fans loved about it.