The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion REMASTER | REVIEW

 

“A portal to 2006 gaming with a fresh coat of paint" 

PC | XBOX SERIES

HOW I PLAYED: I played Oblivion via Xbox GamePass for PC on my R7 7800X3D , RTX 3080 gaming PC. I was playing on a mix of HIGH settings with shadows on Medium at 1440p with Lumen disabled and DLSS on Balanced. I also used RE-Shade to bring the game closer to the originals colors.

MODS USED:

Ayleid Reshade

Reshade

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Before we kick off this review, I want to admit I have never played any of the Elder Scrolls games. I never played Skyrim, and my first introduction to a Bethesda game was Starfield in 2023. Let me just say… Starfield did not make a great first impression on me when it comes to the coveted “Bethesda charm.”
 

However, I’m a sucker for games set in a fantasy world with knights, castles, and magic. So, with the shadow drop of Oblivion Remaster, I was definitely intrigued to give this 2006 game a try. After the letdown that was Avowed, I hoped Oblivion would be a better first-person RPG than what I previously experienced.

STORY — 15/20 

INTRO - 4

Oblivion starts with a monologue voiced by the iconic Sir Patrick Stewart! I forgot that games in the mid- and early 2000s often brought in big-name actors for voice acting. He introduces himself as Emperor Uriel Septim and delivers a fantastic introduction to the game’s world and driving plot. The Gates of Oblivion are opening, and evil plans to take over the land of Tamriel. You, the player character, are imprisoned in the castle jail, conveniently in a cell with a secret path leading outside the city. This is your introduction to the emperor. You’re then taken to the character creator, which apparently has had major improvements, but I found it difficult to make a character that looks conventionally appealing rather than grotesque.
 

You’re quickly introduced to the game’s basic controls through simple combat situations, fighting basic rats and goblins in the castle sewers.

I really enjoyed this intro because it drips with early millennium charm. Also, SPOILER: the emperor dies in the most hilarious South Park fashion ever… It reminded me of the Satan Sweet 16 episode where serial killers had to pick up Satan’s Ferrari cake and kept killing people.

CUTSCENES - 3

The cutscenes I immediately recognized from Starfield... so that means Bethesda has not changed their cutscene style in 17+ years...

They are that zoomed in camera pan of the NPC's face and it moves back and forth between whomever is talking.

But Oblivion does have some environmental cutscenes for major story events but they are very PS2 era. So pretty underwhelming for modern games.

I don't know if it is charm or just carelessness that in 2006 they left in an NPC voiceline that is the actor essentially doing a "re do".. But it is funny that they decided to keep it in the Remaster to stay true to the OG.

I Like that.

WORLD BUILDING - 4

Oblivion excels at world-building, thanks to its awesome introduction. If you have Sir Patrick Stewart narrate anything, it will massively improve its quality. You also get bits and pieces of story from NPC dialogue and side quests. There are also journal entries you can find and read. Considering this game released in 2006, it was basically the mid-2000s Elden Ring.

OVERALL STORY - 4

The overall story of Oblivion is a classic, tried-and-true fantasy trope, but it works! In today’s era of “modern storytelling,” this classic trope feels refreshing. My only real criticism is that there’s no true antagonist with a climactic buildup. It’s like the enemy is just the Land of Mordor (Oblivion) without a Sauron… 

 

Still, I had fun, and you can see a ton of influence in this game’s story. There’s even a Return of the King-style epic battle speech in Oblivion… CINEMA! 

 

However, the game ends abruptly. When I rolled credits, I was like, “Wait… what?”

GRAPHICS — 11/15 

CHARACTER MODELS - 4

The character models received a nice “facelift” with the UE5 graphics update, and everything looks decent in Oblivion. All the characters retain their original Bethesda “charm.” I can’t help but imagine how impressive this was in 2006. 

 

When I look at Martin Septim, I see Boromir, conveniently voiced by Sean Bean, haha. The art direction for the character models may not be my thing, but they look good. All the monster and lizard-class NPCs look fantastic. However, as mentioned earlier, it’s far easier to make a hideous character than an attractive one.

ENVIRONMENTS - 4

I was genuinely surprised by the biome and environment diversity in Oblivion! This game released in 2006, so having an open-world title was likely a massive technical achievement. I would’ve been forgiving if the biome selection was limited, but there are green fields, snowy mountains, flaming volcanoes, dark tombs, and many more location variants. There’s also a weather and time-of-day system, allowing for some amazing vistas during gameplay.

The updated UE5 graphics layer really upped the presentation when I was running in the open world up a mountain side and I could vividly see the aurora borealis in the sky. I was like "wow!"

SPECIAL FX - 3

With the UE5 uplift, I was a bit disappointed by some of the effects. I think this was more about staying true to the original while updating effects for modern tech. For instance, some fire particle effects looked 2D and “cheap” when closing an Oblivion gate. For how taxing this game is, I wasn’t really “wowed” by anything. UE5 has a signature look, and it’s hard to deviate from it. 

 

Not every game can be Clair Obscur: Expedition 33! Still, I wish they’d tried harder.

AUDIO — 11/15 

AMBIENCE - 4

I LOVED the ambience in Oblivion. Just standing in an open field, I could feel the adrenaline of adventure flowing through me! The planets aligned for Bethesda, and they nailed it with Oblivion. The OST, story, and voice acting work together seamlessly. 

 

While playing, I had my headphones on and The Lord of the Rings trilogy playing silently on another display. I was fully immersed in this world!

BOSS MUSIC - 3

There aren’t many bosses in Oblivion. You encounter some “elite” enemies with generic “combat” music, which is disappointing. The end finale has an alternate version of the game’s intro track, which was perfect. I just wish there was more of this during the campaign or side missions.

SOUND DESIGN - 4

The voice acting is both campy and terrible and amazingly awesome! I think THIS is the Bethesda "Charm" people speak of. In the SAME GAME you have the iconic voices of Sir Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean ... but you also have some of the worst voice acting I have heard in a game since Assassins Creed Shadows... 🥴

Also you can tell they used the same voice actor to play like 20 different roles in the game. But with all the faults there is still a charm, and you sort of forgive all the janky ridiculous voice acting in the game.

I think Bethesda assumed we would let them get away with this kind of thing for all their games going forward...

PERFORMANCE — 6/10 

FRAME RATE  - 3

I was able to get a decent framerate even with my aging GPU. At 1440p with my modified HIGH settings (I always turn shadows to Medium as shadows are usually the most taxing) I was able to get a mostly 70-90fps. I also had LUMEN disabled as I didn't feel the slight lighting quality enhancements were worth the dip in performance. And I had DLSS set to balanced.

But after watching Digital Foundry's breakdown on console it was disappointing to see how much this game struggled to hit a consistent 60fps in performance mode.

STABILITY - 3

Oblivion is full of jank and random bugs that originate from the 2006 original. I think it was a cool choice to keep all the games original bugs in so fans of the original could experience them all over again in higher fidelity.

During my playthrough I was near the end of the game and I was doing one of the final fetch missions. After I left this catacomb I noticed I couldn't fast travel... so I thought to myself

"Oh... it's one of these! Where the final mission disables fast travel and you have to run back to the main hub on foot"

NOPE

Turns out 1 random zombie I didn't kill in the catacomb was chasing me, and I had to wait in game for it to catch up to me so I could kill it finally. THEN I was able to fast travel...

BETHESDA CHARM BAYBEE!!

All of that is ok, what was a big letdown was the dreaded UE5 Traversal stutters and shader comp stutters. DF did a great breakdown of this and as I did find it annoying, it didnt't render the game unplayable for me.

And since Oblivion Remake peaked at about 1/4 million concurrent players and held a steady streak of over 100k per day... I think a lot of other people didn't mind too much either.

GAMEPLAY — 27/40 

CONTROLS - 4

I don't know if they updated Oblivion's controls from the 2006 original, but I gotta say... they fetlt EXTREMLY close to Starfields controls. So again... I found it funny that Bethesda has not updated their control scheme too drastically in over 16 years.

The shortcut wheel wasn't that fluent for me in practice but all the other controls flowed and worked well for an open world RPG like this. I also felt really comfortable having played Avowed recently.

MECHANICS  - 4

I do find Bethesda's RPG mechanics a little cumbersome with all of their player backgrounds as well as classes, but I enjoyed the basic RPG mechanics and it really reminded me of the PS2 days of dungeon looters. Find enemies and kill them, take their stuff and fight bigger enemies. Rinse Repeat!

PACING  - 4

There is a LOT of side quests you can go do , but you don't have to do any of them. I will admit, I did look up where to go quickly get the most OP weapons and gear right after the tutorial and I basically steam rolled the entire game. But I loved the choice of being able to do that. I hate when games soft lock you to a certain path to try and prevent savvy players from getting OP too early.

UI/UE  - 4

It was nice to see that the UI / UE was minimal and not a giant eye sore constantly on screen. I also loved how certain menu items fade out when not needed. I also found navigating basic menus was simple and easy to do.

My only small gripe was status ailments. I know some people love this, but I HATED not knowing exactly what ailment I had or what I needed to do to fix it. Near the end of the game I noticed I was doing barely any damage, only to find out I was sick with a few ailments and I purchased every potion I could find and nothing fixed it. I Slept for a bunch of time and still nothing.

Then I had to look up online that I had to go buy a specific ingredient to cure my ailments.

SUPER annoying.

BOSS QUALITY - 2

I won't lie... the bosses are a massive letdown. There aren't really any bosses in Oblivion, kinda like Starfield there may just be some NPC's or Elite type enemies with extended health... that is pretty much it.

The final boss is just a cinematic showpiece and not really a true boss fight at all.

Bethesda really sucks at bosses in their games...

ENEMY VARIETY - 3

I know I am judging a game that is 19 years old... but yea the enemy variety is just basic human NPC's and the Oblivion demon NPC's and some odd skeletons, rats, lizards, and the odd bear or troll.

I found that you don't encounter enough variety in each dungeon, it's just a lot of the same type which makes it feel even more basic.

GAMEPLAY VARIETY - 3

There is an insane amount of side quests you can do in Oblivion and they range from "Go get a thing" or "Go kill ____". And they are all quirky and have their charm with some of their jankiness.

You can also buy a house or find one for free, and deck it out to your liking.

Or... you can just skip all that and go straight to the next story quests. The choice is yours!

But if you don't like doing nothing quests for mostly subpar gear then the gameplay variety is kind of limited in Oblivion.

At first I was closing all the Oblivion gates I encountered and this started to get old fast! As each Oblivion gate is the same auto generated map from a pool of 5 different Oblivion Gate types.

Then I was surprised to find out I didn't actually have to close all of these gates and there was a specific story mission where I had to close like 6 of them... and by that time I was pretty fatigued with doing this repetitive task.

REPLAYABILITY - 3

To me Oblivion and Bethesda games that I have played, are games that you can just keep playing with a single save file. there isn't really a reason to start a new playthrough unless you are just looking to experience story moments again. 

But it is very easy to make a hybrid character and max out all the different stats so you can switch between stealth, magic and melee seamlessly... so again, no reason to start a new playthrough.

BONUS — 0/3

This game is from 2006 and there are no accessibility options. I was pretty surprised to see that none have been added to this Remaster? So no bonus points here.

OVERALL — 70/100 

FAIR

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remaster  is a portal to 2006 gaming with a fresh coat of paint. It's funny how this game is definitely a product of it's time but it is also eye opening to see that Bethesda has barely changed the functionality and mechanics of their games in over 19 years... I will commend the devs on making this remaster true to the original, as that is bold to not want to make changes. And I am sure this was a delight for fans of the 2006 original.

This is Bethesda's Demon's Souls Remake, except they called it a "Remaster"

PROS

✅ Great story

✅ Amazing voice acting (main characters)

✅ Impressive scope for the time

✅ Excellent Atmosphere

 

CONS

❌ Repetitive missions

❌ Combat shows it's age

❌ Disappointing Bosses

❌ Ending felt abrupt

TLDR: 70/100 (FAIR) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remaster delivers a faithful 2006 experience with updated UE5 visuals, charmingly janky voice acting, and a classic fantasy story led by Sir Patrick Stewart’s iconic narration. While the diverse open world, immersive ambience, and flexible gameplay shine, repetitive Oblivion gates, lackluster bosses, and dated mechanics hold it back, making it a nostalgic treat for fans but not a revolutionary remake.

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEO REVIEW HERE