28.06, 1:00 PM: Well met. It is 2025, and I have set foot in Tamriel for the first time. A dying empire in a long-forgotten era, and an obsolete videogame in an increasingly RPG-fied world. I am armed with a steel sword and an open mind. They say, “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered” has vastly improved on the 2006 title. I wonder if that’s actually true. I encountered my first rat enemy five minutes into the game, and killing it, sent it zooming around the whole cave, like a bug (get it?).
28.06, 5:00 PM: What a ride! I really dig this story. There’s a cult called the Mythic Dawn that does genuinely insane things, like writing weird propaganda books and murdering people for some unknown cultish goal. I just joined as a “member”. I promise it’s for completely noble reasons — I want to infiltrate the cult, get the amulet back, seal off all the Gates of Oblivion, and seat the true heir on the throne. Wait a second. Infiltrating a cult…amulet…gates — these sound just like the Templars, the Apple of Eden, and the “glitches” from the old Assassin’s Creed games! It’s no wonder I like this game. These are the building blocks of a solid RPG.
28.06, 8:00 PM: It’s not like games like this don’t exist anymore. They’ve just been incredibly pruned down to a point where some fun elements have been eroded over time. Just these past few months, I’ve played both Avowed and Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which have both the worldbuilding and the type of missions that Oblivion contains. But there’s just something about Oblivion which makes the expansive world feel a lot more intimate and controlled. Every conversation could hold some important world rumour that could unlock a new line of side quests, and every dungeon explored could hold a treasure that’s quite useful. On the other hand, some of these newer games feel like an enormous and growing chore list that needs items to be slowly checked off.
29.06, 1:00 AM: The cracks are starting to show. I have experienced the future, and cannot possibly go back to a remastered version of a twenty-year-old game that hasn’t made enough changes. Obviously, I wasn’t expecting a complete revamp of the old game, but there are elements here where I wonder why they couldn’t have possibly done better. I like trotting down the meadows on my horse, and typically avoid fast travel if I can. And given that the “Remastered” version has much better-looking water and grass and all of that, I would assume that they had optimised the game a bit better so we can actually enjoy viewing them. But no, there was a lot of world lag while exploring the surroundings on foot.
I would have also appreciated better menu management. Even in the presence of shortcuts, some items don’t add up on top of each other, so I do have to navigate through the large menu of items to get to one potion that I have to consume in the middle of a battle. I can’t imagine better categorisation of items being a negative for the remastered version. Unless it has been retained for nostalgia purposes. And that’s kind of the problem here. Where do you draw the line between retaining tedious tasks and flawed missions and fixing them, if the entire game kind of runs off the nostalgia of being a really great game some 20 years back?
29.06, 3:00 AM: My spouse caught me playing the game and took over it for a bit. There was a fevered sort of dedication and ease with which he was able to finish the missions. Like, he was just resuming a save file from 2010. With a deep understanding of the maps, the world, and all of its weird, buggy quirks. A quest doesn’t really give you a clue on what to do next? Well, I played it 10 years back, and I know what I need to be doing next — follow me!
Oblivion Remastered is meant to serve the nostalgia market. It doesn’t signpost things that can be done in the world, or fix any of the more major quest bugs. If you’ve played the game before, odds are, you’d still like it now. But I’ve been spoiled a bit too much by RPGs that are a lot easier to follow. If you’ve never played it before, don’t make the mistake I did and buy the expensive PS5 version. Oblivion is still a very enjoyable story track that is worth experiencing. So, get the free version of the game via the Xbox Game Pass instead — that’ll give you a good taste for it.