Our first look at the long-awaited remake of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion comes from a leak of screenshots and details…
Eurogamer understands Bethesda’s current plan is to shadow drop the game next week on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, including via Xbox Game Pass.
Honestly, I don’t have a ton of faith in Bethesda anymore, so I don’t care much for the next game. This on the other hand, as I understand it, was handled by another studio which has delivered great remasters and remakes, so I’m actually kinda stoked for it. I could play through Oblivion again, it’s been years.
Skyblivion (the fan remake) will probably have much more attention to detail and will also release this year, after over 10 years of development. The dev log videos look amazing. I’d be very surprised if the official remake is as good.
I really admire the work of the Skyblivion crew, as well as the ones remaking Morrowind, but I’m not quite as cynical as you regarding the official. As I said, I think the studio has handled some good remasters in the past and I think it will be done well.
I don’t think the official one is gonna be bad by any means. They will probably fix the biggest flaws with hindsight and modernize the graphics, and it will be a big improvement over the original if everything goes right.
But ultimately they had deadlines to meet and many more games in the pipeline, whilst the Skyblivion team can work on everything for as long as it takes, experiment much more and put as much detail and soul into everything as they want. I think that will make a difference, but both will be good games.
The only part that gives me pause is that this is supposedly in Unreal Engine rather than Bethesda’s usual engine.
Not to say that there won’t be a modding scene, but it will be substantially different without the equivalent of the Construction Set/GECK/Creation Kit.
I admit this is less of a concern to me because I don’t do a lot of modding, but I can definitely understand that disappointment for those that do. With a different engine, though, I do hope it will be less buggy.
Feels on brand for Bethesda to secret release this just before skyblivion mod finally gets near their release date. Kind of feels like a slap in the face to the community. I guess we will get a who did it better comparison.
I am actually not even sure how much input Bethesda had in this. It was remastered by an outside studio contracted by Microsoft. The same studio handling the remaster of Metal Gear Solid 3, apparently.
Unlikely to happen, because the leadership behind the project claimed they are in contact with Bethesda, to make sure no one’s stepping on anyone’s toes. Although obviously they can just pull the rug at any time, which would be catastrophic. Given that they’ve remade basically every single asset in the game, and require the original game to be owned and installed, it should be fine
That’s so fucking weird to drop a remaster or remake like that so suddenly with no advertising or announcement. Something about this still doesn’t feel right in my gut, so I guess I’ll believe it when (if) it does drop. I don’t even know if I am going to buy it if it’s real, I have more faith in the modders behind Skyblivion than I do in Bethesda to actually do right with their IPs
What’s weird is that they’re still keeping it a secret even though it’s been rumored for months. We know it’s coming, but they’re still acting like it’s going to be a surprise.
Video game marketing changed dramatically about 2 years ago. No one likes long marketing cycles anymore. There are too many opportunities for delays or “puddlegates”.
Microsoft likes doing shadowdrops, apparently. Hi-Fi Rush being the most prominent, but they also shadowdropped the Ninja Gaiden 2 remake a few months ago.
i think its a panic project that was fired up quickly because Starfield failed so miserably.
unless this was just a side project that a few devs were working on and it was latched on to as a product that could be focused on.
i suspect that while todd was failing to put out fires, a couple devs were like “should we tell them we’ve been messing around with Oblivion assets in our new engine?”
No, they contracted this game out to another developer, and it’s in Unreal. It’s been in the works for a long time. If they’re smart, it’s a testbed for getting future games off of their usual Creation engine.
I hope they made it impossible to mod. In my new but rapidly growing religion, “modding” (desacrating) games is a mortal sin. Elder Scrolls games have damned the souls of many hairy, soft-bodied men.
Bethesda used to have a very short time between announcements and release. This game isn’t made by them, but they probably made the devs keep a tight lid on it.
My only thing is that I hope they fixed some of the blaring issues with the original. I still go back and play Oblivion from time to time, but I usually have to spend 4 or 5 hours just downloading and installing mods. My biggest gripe with Oblivion has always been enemy scaling. Unless you do the main quest first you’ll be fighting the strongest enemies in the game by the time you get around to it.
We’re saying the oblivion port to UE5 is going to be less buggy? That makes you hopeful?? What is this place??? Did the gta trilogy not make it to lemmy?
I mean, despite whatever reputation UE5 may have, Oblivion was legendarily buggy. Oblivion defined Bethesda’s reputation for producing bug-riddled games.
Im not denying the bugginess of oblivion I’m more concerned about the general unplayability of a lot of Unreal games in this latest gen
Like if the bugs were bad when they wrote the code I can’t imagine porting that code into unreal with its famously poor optimizations is anything but the worst case scenario for this remaster lmao
My hope was that they were porting it to creation 2 with upscaled assets and taking some time to squash the most egregious bugs. Hearing it’s going to be a ue5 port now I’m almost not even willing to give it a chance. We shall see. For all we know, this could just be industry drivel getting us excited about a fake leak.
Huh, I never knew satisfactory was in unreal. On that point, if they offloaded development to a 3rd party studio does that impact your expectations? Idk who it is but I saw a bunch of people saying it wasn’t Bethesda remaking it
I remember that one from the PSP but I never played it. I didn’t know it was on DS and mobile too! That’s actually pretty sick. It looks much more like the original GTA games, which is not what I expected. I bet that was neat for the time with gta 4 having just dropped!
I still remember my first playthrough. Low level character. I save scummed until I could sneak into the tower in the heart of the Imperial City. In the council chamber was a mage with an incredibly powerful staff. I pickpocketed it off of him, again using save scumming. I then traveled to Bravil and entered the castle there. As the Count of Bravil was giving a speech, I pulled out the staff and zapped him dead on his throne, right in front the of the whole court. I then got away from the assassination through the brilliant escape plan of running out the front door, murder weapon still in hand.
I beat the entire thieves guild quest line starting at basically level 1 by using the strategy of “run fast”. There were some major flaws that kept me from loving that game properly, so I’m hoping it’s more user friendly with the remake. But I could definitely see a lot of charm in it.
If it isn’t one of the ugliest games I’ve ever played though. Why is every character a shiny, pudgy, orange?
Yup. I’m pretty sour on Bethesda RPGs after getting burned hard by Starfield. But I have a hard time imagining even they could fuck up a simple remastering of a game I already loved in the past.
My favorite story was actually from my buddy’s playthrough. He duped the poison apple from the assassin’s guild quest using the arrow glitch. He then duped it 50 more times and put-pocketed one into everyone’s pockets in a specific town. When they all went to lunch they ate them and died. An entire town of dead people. It was hilarious.
I don’t think it would be hard to fake these screenshots. Bethesda shadow dropping a game of this high profile within a week, without ever having officially said anything about it or even replying to media asking about it just seems incredibly unlikely.
Maybe release isn’t likely, but announcement is. Remember they drop Fallout 4 trailer and then saying it’ll come end of year? Maybe that’s the magic they want to recreate.
Oblivion has my heart, but I’m not super interested in this. So far some of the visual choices look less inspired than the original take, and I don’t just mean the yellow filter. The dryad went from other worlds to person with a dryad skin equipped.
I’m more interested in the Skyblivion mod. It feels more like it improves upon what was there and has some cool deviations of its own.
Having been playing it again recently, it still has a lot of what Morrowind had, and Skyrim doesn’t. Plays like Skyrim, but still has more depth than it. Not a lot more, but still more.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
they really doing anything but making elder scrolls 6 huh
That game only really went into production after Starfield shipped.
starfield counts as “anything but”.
They need to create some new Creation Engine bugs first
If you just click on the article and read the first paragraph, you will learn that it’s made by Virtuous.
I was making a joke I’m not gonna check if I’m right first
Honestly, I don’t have a ton of faith in Bethesda anymore, so I don’t care much for the next game. This on the other hand, as I understand it, was handled by another studio which has delivered great remasters and remakes, so I’m actually kinda stoked for it. I could play through Oblivion again, it’s been years.
Skyblivion (the fan remake) will probably have much more attention to detail and will also release this year, after over 10 years of development. The dev log videos look amazing. I’d be very surprised if the official remake is as good.
I really admire the work of the Skyblivion crew, as well as the ones remaking Morrowind, but I’m not quite as cynical as you regarding the official. As I said, I think the studio has handled some good remasters in the past and I think it will be done well.
I don’t think the official one is gonna be bad by any means. They will probably fix the biggest flaws with hindsight and modernize the graphics, and it will be a big improvement over the original if everything goes right.
But ultimately they had deadlines to meet and many more games in the pipeline, whilst the Skyblivion team can work on everything for as long as it takes, experiment much more and put as much detail and soul into everything as they want. I think that will make a difference, but both will be good games.
deleted by creator
The only part that gives me pause is that this is supposedly in Unreal Engine rather than Bethesda’s usual engine.
Not to say that there won’t be a modding scene, but it will be substantially different without the equivalent of the Construction Set/GECK/Creation Kit.
I admit this is less of a concern to me because I don’t do a lot of modding, but I can definitely understand that disappointment for those that do. With a different engine, though, I do hope it will be less buggy.
At least it is not skyrim again?
The first oblivion gate actually just takes you to the Skyrim intro and you can’t leave.
“Hey you, you’re finally awake.”
“Caught trying to cross the boarder from the plane of Oblivion, huh?”
*border
Lmao gotem
Honestly, if it did that, im not sure I’d even be mad. That would be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen a gaming company do
Now we get 11 years of Oblivion re-releases!
I guess TESVI is already doomed, probably won’t release until after the ice-caps melt.
Sounds like we won’t have to wait too much longer then! /s
Shit, you’re right. That was an awful time reference for the joke… it might actually release before the Oblivion remake.
Feels on brand for Bethesda to secret release this just before skyblivion mod finally gets near their release date. Kind of feels like a slap in the face to the community. I guess we will get a who did it better comparison.
Sounds like what they did to fallout London.
I am actually not even sure how much input Bethesda had in this. It was remastered by an outside studio contracted by Microsoft. The same studio handling the remaster of Metal Gear Solid 3, apparently.
Unless they DMCA the Skyblivion mod.
Unlikely to happen, because the leadership behind the project claimed they are in contact with Bethesda, to make sure no one’s stepping on anyone’s toes. Although obviously they can just pull the rug at any time, which would be catastrophic. Given that they’ve remade basically every single asset in the game, and require the original game to be owned and installed, it should be fine
Also, it’s likely to drive sales for Bethesda, considering
Games in plural, as well as all DLCs $$
Usually they do that shortly before announcing their own, like Nintendo with AM2R. Maybe they won’t do it at all.
That’s so fucking weird to drop a remaster or remake like that so suddenly with no advertising or announcement. Something about this still doesn’t feel right in my gut, so I guess I’ll believe it when (if) it does drop. I don’t even know if I am going to buy it if it’s real, I have more faith in the modders behind Skyblivion than I do in Bethesda to actually do right with their IPs
What’s weird is that they’re still keeping it a secret even though it’s been rumored for months. We know it’s coming, but they’re still acting like it’s going to be a surprise.
Video game marketing changed dramatically about 2 years ago. No one likes long marketing cycles anymore. There are too many opportunities for delays or “puddlegates”.
Microsoft likes doing shadowdrops, apparently. Hi-Fi Rush being the most prominent, but they also shadowdropped the Ninja Gaiden 2 remake a few months ago.
i think its a panic project that was fired up quickly because Starfield failed so miserably.
unless this was just a side project that a few devs were working on and it was latched on to as a product that could be focused on.
i suspect that while todd was failing to put out fires, a couple devs were like “should we tell them we’ve been messing around with Oblivion assets in our new engine?”
No, they contracted this game out to another developer, and it’s in Unreal. It’s been in the works for a long time. If they’re smart, it’s a testbed for getting future games off of their usual Creation engine.
ooooooh! I’m very happy to have been corrected. it might actually be decent, then!
thank you much for the info. that’s interesting.
I hope they made it impossible to mod. In my new but rapidly growing religion, “modding” (desacrating) games is a mortal sin. Elder Scrolls games have damned the souls of many hairy, soft-bodied men.
343 is doing the same with halo.
Bethesda used to have a very short time between announcements and release. This game isn’t made by them, but they probably made the devs keep a tight lid on it.
My only thing is that I hope they fixed some of the blaring issues with the original. I still go back and play Oblivion from time to time, but I usually have to spend 4 or 5 hours just downloading and installing mods. My biggest gripe with Oblivion has always been enemy scaling. Unless you do the main quest first you’ll be fighting the strongest enemies in the game by the time you get around to it.
Considering Skyrim and Fallout 4 inherited bugs from Morrowind, I’m sure this has inherited them again. And I’m sure everything feels just as janky.
Edit: actually this is on UE5 from a third party, so I’m hopeful it won’t have that Bethesda feel.
Theres no way I’m reading this in real life
We’re saying the oblivion port to UE5 is going to be less buggy? That makes you hopeful?? What is this place??? Did the gta trilogy not make it to lemmy?
I mean, despite whatever reputation UE5 may have, Oblivion was legendarily buggy. Oblivion defined Bethesda’s reputation for producing bug-riddled games.
But that is honestly part of the charm.
Im not denying the bugginess of oblivion I’m more concerned about the general unplayability of a lot of Unreal games in this latest gen
Like if the bugs were bad when they wrote the code I can’t imagine porting that code into unreal with its famously poor optimizations is anything but the worst case scenario for this remaster lmao
My hope was that they were porting it to creation 2 with upscaled assets and taking some time to squash the most egregious bugs. Hearing it’s going to be a ue5 port now I’m almost not even willing to give it a chance. We shall see. For all we know, this could just be industry drivel getting us excited about a fake leak.
This is definitely a ground-up remake, not a port with original code.
Wait, seriously? That is terrifying lmao
Why is that? It’s being done by a different studio entirely that specializes in ports and remasters.
The quality of Unreal games is a product of the developer. Plenty of games have been great. Satisfactory and Talos Principle 2, for example.
Huh, I never knew satisfactory was in unreal. On that point, if they offloaded development to a 3rd party studio does that impact your expectations? Idk who it is but I saw a bunch of people saying it wasn’t Bethesda remaking it
The only GTA game I’ve played was the one on the DS, so 🤷♂️
They had gta on the DS??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_Chinatown_Wars
It was pretty good.
😮
I remember that one from the PSP but I never played it. I didn’t know it was on DS and mobile too! That’s actually pretty sick. It looks much more like the original GTA games, which is not what I expected. I bet that was neat for the time with gta 4 having just dropped!
I used those glitches to my advantage thank you very much.
I still remember my first playthrough. Low level character. I save scummed until I could sneak into the tower in the heart of the Imperial City. In the council chamber was a mage with an incredibly powerful staff. I pickpocketed it off of him, again using save scumming. I then traveled to Bravil and entered the castle there. As the Count of Bravil was giving a speech, I pulled out the staff and zapped him dead on his throne, right in front the of the whole court. I then got away from the assassination through the brilliant escape plan of running out the front door, murder weapon still in hand.
Damn I loved Oblivion.
Muuuuurrddeeerrr!!!
I beat the entire thieves guild quest line starting at basically level 1 by using the strategy of “run fast”. There were some major flaws that kept me from loving that game properly, so I’m hoping it’s more user friendly with the remake. But I could definitely see a lot of charm in it.
If it isn’t one of the ugliest games I’ve ever played though. Why is every character a shiny, pudgy, orange?
Yup. I’m pretty sour on Bethesda RPGs after getting burned hard by Starfield. But I have a hard time imagining even they could fuck up a simple remastering of a game I already loved in the past.
My favorite story was actually from my buddy’s playthrough. He duped the poison apple from the assassin’s guild quest using the arrow glitch. He then duped it 50 more times and put-pocketed one into everyone’s pockets in a specific town. When they all went to lunch they ate them and died. An entire town of dead people. It was hilarious.
I see you also follow the life philosophy of, “if you’re not on at least one watch list, are you even really living?” :D
I’ve been save scumming my way through the fighters guild quests for literally 10+ years.
I’m like 1 achievement away from 100%… but holy shit, those trolls are relentless. They take like 40 hits to kill but only need 1-2 to kill you.
I don’t think it would be hard to fake these screenshots. Bethesda shadow dropping a game of this high profile within a week, without ever having officially said anything about it or even replying to media asking about it just seems incredibly unlikely.
This remaster has been leaked and rumoured since 2020 though
Maybe release isn’t likely, but announcement is. Remember they drop Fallout 4 trailer and then saying it’ll come end of year? Maybe that’s the magic they want to recreate.
Too bad it’s american and I’ll never buy it.
Yar har fiddly dee
deleted by creator
Oblivion has my heart, but I’m not super interested in this. So far some of the visual choices look less inspired than the original take, and I don’t just mean the yellow filter. The dryad went from other worlds to person with a dryad skin equipped.
I’m more interested in the Skyblivion mod. It feels more like it improves upon what was there and has some cool deviations of its own.
I have a bad feeling about this. I’m getting GTA The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition flashbacks.
Yeah… but RuneScape dgaronwilds came out today so… Only so much money to spend this month
But that’s the worst one
It’s in the awkward transition between good game Morrowind and mediocre game Skyrim, with the worst parts of both
Having been playing it again recently, it still has a lot of what Morrowind had, and Skyrim doesn’t. Plays like Skyrim, but still has more depth than it. Not a lot more, but still more.
Maybe I should give another chance
Well…more room for improvement, then?