Review: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remaster is an RPG gem for 2025

This is the 27th of last seed. The year of Akatosh, 433. These are the closing days of the 3rd era… and the final hours of my life.

These are the closing lines of the opening narration spoken by Uriel Septim VII, the Emperor of the Cyrodilic empire voiced by Sir Patrick Stewart. This is how many players both old and new will be introduced to not only the imperial capital of Cyrodil, but to the world of The Elder Scrolls in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

The Elder Scrolls is a series near and dear to me. I was first introduced to this fantasy world series by my childhood neighbor back in 2011 with a simple question he asked me: “Stormcloak? or Imperial?” Young Halo-pilled me obviously picked imperial with not much thought given the little context provided. From there he would invite me over and he would let me play Skyrim for the very first time on his Xbox 360. I have been addicted to the franchise ever since, even dedicating over 6000 hours into The Elder Scrolls Online by Zenimax Studios. So when rumors began to leak about a potential remaster of Oblivion around the summer of 2023, I began to follow the crumb trails with cautious optimism.

Cut to April 22nd, 2025, and Bethesda Studios began their livestream at 11am Eastern Time for the announcement of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remastered, and as myself and many who were following these leaks and rumors suspected, Bethesda Studios would indeed release the game the day of the announcement just like they had for 2023’s Hi-Fi Rush. Funnily enough, the steam page and listing was already up minutes before the live stream would announce that the game is now live. So myself and my good friend, a YouTuber were able to secure ourselves a copy of the game ahead of time (hehe!).

So how does it hold up?

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remaster Story

The story remains the same as the original with no change. Set 6 years after the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, you play as the Hero of Kvatch, who starts as a prisoner within the Imperial City’s prison, a blank slate for the player to craft their own story and adventures through. After a chance encounter with emperor Uriel Septim VII escorted by his imperial bodyguards, the blades, he decides to have you freed as he recognizes your face from his dreams, which means he will indeed die that very day. Within the Imperial City sewers you witness the emperor get assassinated by the Mythic Dawn cult, but not before he entrusts you with the Chim-el Adabal, the amulet of kings that has been passed down as a divine right by the Cyrodilic emperors who have Dragon blood flowing through their veins.

Emperor Uriel VII and one of The Blades keeping guard.

With the emperor’s death, and the death of his 3 sons, oblivion gates soon begin to appear throughout not only the region, but the entire continent of Tamriel. Evil forces from beyond the mortal plane led by the Daedric prince, Mehrunes Dagon, begin their attempt to invade the world. You, the player are then tasked to find Uriel Septim VII’s last remaining heir to bestow with the amulet of kings, in hopes to have the dragonfires lit, and close shut the jaws of Oblivion. But that is up to you to pursue: you are given the freedom to explore, join various guilds, fight in arenas, dungeon delve, murder, pillage, steal, become a god, buy houses, craft items, craft spells, solve a murder mystery, jump into a living painting, and so much more. The order in which you do these events and the order in which you complete the main story is once again, a choice entirely up to you and what you decide is best fitting for your player character. That is the beauty of the Elder Scrolls games at their core.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remaster Gameplay

Developed by Virtuos Studios who are behind the remastered visuals in collaboration with Bethesda Studios, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster is as the title suggests, a remaster, and not a remake.

While there is lots of discourse among gamers about whether this game is a remaster or remake, I can confidently say it is just a remaster. a Remake would be recreating the game in an entirely new engine. The major factor is due to being in a new game engine, the game’s base code, along with the uniqueness of how that engine performs, are not of the original engine. Think of the Resident Evil 2 remake, Silent Hill 2 remake, Or even the ongoing Skyblivion project which seeks to remake Oblivion entirely within The Elder Scrolls V‘s engine with the game-play mechanics of that title being part of its core. That is a remake. 

Instead, Oblivion remaster works on a dual-layered engine method, where the engine tasked with the remastered visuals runs parallel to the original game’s engine underneath, so the game-play can be preserved as it originally is. Think of Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Spyro reignited trilogy, Crash Bandicoot N.Sane trilogy, or even the 2018 Shadow of the Colossus remaster. Those are games which use the dual-layered engine method for remasters. So in Oblivion’s case you are still playing the original 2006 game but with the Unreal Engine 5 providing the new visual graphics on the surface. Thus, a remaster.

My favorite way to quickly level up my sneak skills.

There are some slight differences though to Oblivion’s code for the remaster, which threw many people off in this debate, but people forget the Gamebyro engine Oblivion runs on can be easily modded or modified to provide additional game-play elements or changes.

The first of these notable changes is a new sprinting mechanic. In the Original Oblivion, while sprint was an option, there was no stamina penalty for doing so. Now there is a slight addition where sprinting will cause your stamina meter to deplete just like in its sequel title, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Another mechanic that was added are quick-slots, where if you press and hold an assigned key, you can easily swap, equip, or unequip items from your inventory through a quick-slot wheel. This helps save time from having to open up your inventory and browse through your items to find just what you need during crucial moments. Aside from that, the game-play remains the exact same thanks to the original game’s code being intact under the hood. Also in the UI, you will now have save folders for each character, a feature first introduced in Fallout 4, which will allow for easy management of your save data for the many play-throughs you will have across Cyrodil.

Quick-slot in use to swap to a rusty iron axe.

Another major change is spotted as early as the character creation. You can create your character just like in the original by choosing one of 10 races, however you will now have the option to choose an origin, which aside from providing additional context and lore to the world, will provide your character a stat bonus originally tied to the original game’s decision of you choosing to be Male or Female. Speaking of, one “controversial” change is the removal of Male and Female in the character creation, replacing them with body type 1 or body type 2. Personally I don’t see why this would cause some controversy in social media and the gaming community as The Elder Scrolls series has always been known to provide freedom of player creation for their character’s identities. In addition this is the same universe that has a hermaphroditic living god, and various non-binary and transgender characters as early as the late 90’s to the early 2000’s, predating the current terminology of “wokeness” being carelessly thrown about. Within the character creation is also the addition of new hairstyles, ways to color your hair, an abundance of facial hair features, skin tones, and even various eye colors for you to choose from now. These additional options allow you to further craft and sculpt the character you wish to play and role-play as, or create the most horrendous and outlandish looking character the universe has ever witnessed. That choice is once again, entirely in your hands!

My wood elf with a view of one of the origins you can choose during character creation.

The remaster also remains rather faithful to the original game, choosing to not recast or replace the original voice cast which included the aforementioned Sir Patrick Stewart as Uriel Septim VII, Sean Bean as Martin Septim, Terrance Stamp as Mankar Camoran, Lynda Carter as the daedric prince Azura, as well as providing additional voices for the female Nords and Orcs, Jeff Baker as the daedric prince Sheogorath‘s right hand man, Haskill, Wes Johnson as Sheogorath, Pelinal Whitestrake, and among many various voices in that game, the list goes on. There are new additions to the voice act in the remaster to provide additional supplemental voices, some of them being familiar returning voice actors from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and even The Elder Scrolls Online. Audio remains mostly the same aside from the dialogue, as sounds for weapons, spells, armor, npcs, and even the environments remain the same after nearly 20 years. Even music composer Jeremy Soule‘s memorable soundtrack remains untouched. This comes as a surprise since many remasters, such as Halo Combat Evolved or Halo 2 anniversary would make entirely new audio and music for the game with the exception of the dialogue remaining the same.

I ran this game on a gaming laptop running on an Nvidia GTX 1650 GPU with an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU on medium graphics settings and the game still looks great as you can see in the images provided. There are slight performance issues such as stuttering on some gaming rigs which can be remedied with .ini tweaks until a patch is provided. But aside from that, loading times aren’t as long at least in my experience. It isn’t perfect, and any changes that fans wouldn’t like are very minor for the most part.

Even on medium settings, the game looks and performs just as great.

Aside from that, the rest of the game play remains relatively unchanged after all of these years. NPCs will have their own schedules they abide to on a day to day basis, and often times will cross paths to exchange rumors or sprinkle in bits of lore to the player if they eavesdrop. The player can talk to these NPCs, barter, bribe, pickpocket, help, or murder whoever they choose. In the world outside of the towns and cities, you will face off against various wildlife, factions, and otherworldly threats which will chase after you for miles on end. Even running out of a dungeon won’t always guarantee safety as that threat can follow you into a nearby town or home. The game also has a justice system, where any crimes committed and witnessed will result in a bounty being placed on your head. Guards will then try to arrest the player and you have the option to resist arrest and try to fight your way out, go to jail to then live out a brief sentence or attempt to break out of prison, or, pay the fine with your in game currency.

There are a variety of weapons which range from bows and arrows, daggers, short swords, long swords, axes, maces, and more. There is also a variety of clothing and armor to further expand on the freedom the player has in their appearance and the type of build they wish to go for. Every action the player takes increases their major and minor skills based on their class. Every time the player levels up they get the option to spend attribute points towards their Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, Agility, Speed, Endurance, Personality, and Luck. Each attribute will in turn affect how much spells you can cast, how much items you can carry, how much stamina you will have, how much loot you will find, influence your speech-craft, and more.

In addition there is a magic system with various types and classifications known as schools of magic. these schools are labelled as Destruction, Alteration, Illusion, Conjuration, Mysticism, and Restoration. There is an abundance of spells which range from casting a simple fireball, charming those you talk to, walking on water, summoning a spirit to fight by your side, or heal your wounds and restore health on the fly without the use of potions. This can be further expanded upon thanks to a spell crafting system included within Oblivion, which can lead to some insane spells being created by you, should you know exactly what to do. Leading to some very overpowered spells such as a insta-kill spell that affects anyone you choose to touch with your own hands.

Speaking of potions, another mechanic is alchemy, which involves the creation of potions and poisons through a variety of items you can find during your journeys. Ingredients can range from the plantlike in the wild, the organs of your fallen enemies, or even the basic food and goods you can find in a tavern. Each item will have 4 effects which will require you to take the time to learn through the process of alchemy. The end result can be simple healing potions, to those which increase your speed and can make you jump great heights, allowing you to soar through the world in a sense (just beware of falling to you death!).

Hello potion seller, I am going into battle.

I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface on the other game-play features such as crafting weapons and armor, to even enchanting items. But thankfully there is over 20 years of resources and information available to you to learn from as well as actual in-game recipes and books you can find in the world that can also shed some light in the process. The end result is a game world that functions like a massive sandbox to tell your own story in, however you choose. You could make the best of what the game has to offer and create the ultimate build and equipment for your character, or just ignore all that and play in a different way. It is what sets it apart from other amazing RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3, which, while being a fantastic game, limits you in your exploration and forces the player on a more linear journey with a clear end and point of no return. Here, you can continue to play well after completing the main quest to pursue the other side quests and stories told from the expansion DLC.

Closing thoughts

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster sets the gold standard of what a remaster should be. Overhaul the visuals of the original, while remaining true to the original art direction with very minor changes. The game-play additions and changes act more as a quality of life addition to keep it on par with modern game titles. By keeping the art direction as close to the original, and by retaining the original audio, voice lines, and even the original game-play within oblivion’s Gamebyro engine, it allows old players to go through the game just as they remembered it. For new players, this will be their first time experiencing an Elder Scrolls Game since 2011’s release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. So the new visuals and game-play additions will be easy for new players to get accustomed to while also being able to enjoy the charm, the world, and the lore this series is known for. There is also the added benefit of preserving and allowing new and old players to experience the iconic jank and unscripted moments only made possible thanks to the original engine and its havoc physic engine, so moments like various npc dying in comedic fashion, the delivery of cheesy dialogue, or even moments like a guard running and screaming at the player before getting launched into space, can still happen.

For Elder Scrolls fans such as myself, this is a nice way to satiate my Elder Scrolls thirst until the inevitable release of The Elder Scrolls VI. Time to pour more hours of my life into this series again, and enjoy the resurgence of Oblivion memes and stories from the fandom.

Two NPCs stop to have a brief exchange of rumors within the Imperial City.

There is also contention as to whether this remaster will overshadow or destroy the aforementioned Skyblivion project, but I would have to personally disagree. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster is just a remaster for those who wish to re-experience this nearly 20 year old game with upgraded visuals and introduce new fans to the series and world of Tamriel. Skyblivion is a from scratch remake within Skyrim’s engine with the added benefit of mod support, and also will release for FREE. So if you wish to play Oblivion in another way with Skyrim’s gameplay features and the ability to easily mod the game to your liking, you will have that option as well. Lastly, if you want to experience the original Oblivion as intended, you can still play the original game to this day on Xbox, Playstation, and PC.

As of this writing, the remaster is already exceeding expectations as it is currently sitting with over 174,000 concurrent players with an all time peak of 182,021 players shortly after its launch on Steam. This isn’t even counting the players on Xbox and Playstation platforms, making it one of the most popular games for the week of April 21st. We shall see if the numbers continue to rise as the weekend arrives and more players purchase the remaster, and how it will perform in the following weeks since.

You can get The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster for $49.99 on Steam, Xbox, and Playstation. This will include the base game, and all of the standard DLCs and expansions such as Knights of the Nine and Shivering isles. The Deluxe edition for $59.99 brings the return of the notorious horse armor DLC (I see what you did there!), as well as new quests, armor, an artbook, and even a digital copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s soundtrack.

Now if only Bethesda Studios greenlights more official Elder Scrolls comics so I don’t have to keep re-reading the Redguard comic whenever I think about how little expanded media there is of this rich world.