The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Review

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Switch 2) Review

Prettier but just as janky as you remember.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of those games that, by its very nature, needs some context when it comes to modern discussion. Oblivion as it released in 2006 was an ambitious monstrosity that seemed held together by duct tape and was constantly at risk of coming apart at the seams. To some degree, Oblivion remains the peak of Bethesda’s efforts to create a world. Every NPC is constantly being simulated even when offscreen. They all have dynamically changing opinions of the player and each other. The result can at times feel a little goofy, and incredibly immersive at others. The side effect is that Oblivion is an unstable mess constantly careening towards disaster. And it’s beautiful. It crashes, it breaks, and you just never know what weird emergent behavior will crop up next. And while it may sound wild to a modern audience, that’s why a lot of us love this game. Bethesda’s decision to visually overhaul Oblivion while preserving that underlying code is both a strength and weakness for Oblivion Remastered. This is an unstable game. Some of that has (even during the review period) been cleaned up with patches, but much of it is just inherent fragility balanced precariously on a twenty-year-old engine punching well above its weight.

If your gaming has been exclusive to Nintendo, Oblivion may very well be your first Elder Scrolls experience outside of Skyrim. Oblivion is similarly an open-world action RPG. You’ll work your way through a primary story while constantly finding yourself distracted with side quests. You’ll build your character to suit your playstyle. You can be a heavily armored tank, a stealthy archer, or a spell slinging wizard. Or if you’re like me, all of the above with the least efficient build possible.

However, more so than Skyrim, Oblivion places a heavy focus on simulation. NPCs have unique dispositions, weapons and gear can degrade and break, and the world in general feels a bit less forgiving. For example, early in my time with the Switch 2 version, I absentmindedly wandered into a lair of vampires. A couple in-game days later I noticed I was randomly losing health while wandering the world. I pulled up my active status effects and realized I had contracted vampirism. As I worked my way towards finding a cure I also slowly began gaining new abilities unique to my state. NPCs began noticing that I seemed a little off. This one thoughtless decision had completely altered how I played the game. I had to plan my routes to move only at night. Honestly if it hadn’t been for wanting some daytime footage for the sake of this review, I may have just stayed a vampire. For a few hours, my story in Oblivion became the story of wrestling with whether or not to cure this affliction. It had nothing to do with my actual quests I was working on. It was a story created by my choices that I resolved to no great fanfare beyond my own relief at stepping out into the sun for the first time in many in-game days.

It is these sorts of experiences that make Oblivion so special in my mind compared to other Bethesda Game Studios titles. There is just something about unpredictability. It doesn’t have to be a huge multi-hour quest either. The key underlying plot hook of Oblivion is entering the titular Oblivion gates and shutting them down, to protect the world from a flood of demons. Early in the story after shutting one of these, I returned to a nearby refugee camp to find that a merchant I had spoken to hours before was dead. I have no idea what happened to her. Something had been simulated while I wasn’t there. A demon may have wandered away from the gate and into the camp, or she may have gotten into a fight with another NPC or caught up in a brawl between a pickpocket and a guard. I have no way of knowing. But I sure did loot her corpse and steal her money.

When it comes to the Switch 2 port of Oblivion, there are two ways to approach it. It is overall a pretty accomplished port of the remaster initially released on Xbox Series consoles, PlayStation 5, and PC. There were moments where I was legitimately impressed with how good Oblivion looks on Switch 2. It even maintains some high end effects like raytraced lighting and reflections in both docked and handheld mode. On the other hand, this isn’t a particularly stable game on those other platforms. Unsurprisingly, the Switch 2 doesn’t fix the underlying issues. Some are inherent to the remaster but many tie back to legacy code. That’s the thing about this remaster; it is a pretty Unreal Engine renderer wrapped around the original Oblivion engine, which has some very obvious bottlenecks. The frame rate has been capped at 30 and heavy action can easily tank that. The Elder Scrolls series isn’t a fast-paced game so most of the time that frame rate isn’t an issue, but I did have some larger fights where frame drops became a legitimate problem. Exploration also yields pretty regular stutters as map segments load and unload. It is worth noting that most of the time, actual performance issues are largely limited to overworld exploration. Because dungeons and towns are loaded separately, they generally run pretty smoothly. That said, I did have one hard crash back to the home menu, and several endless loading screens. The loading screen bug seemed more prevalent in handheld mode and seemingly disappeared partway through my time with the game. I suspect the issue was at least mitigated in a hotfix, but regardless beware that the handheld experience may come with some extra instability.

Oblivion Remastered is a visually beautiful take on an incredible but technically flawed masterpiece. That being said, it is hard to recommend Oblivion Remastered without reservation. On the one hand much of its underlying systems remain unique to this day. On the other hand, there is a reason Bethesda themselves pulled back on some of these systems going forward. Oblivion is a weird janky game, and this remaster merely makes it a prettier janky game. If you have nostalgia from playing Oblivion back in 2006, I think you’ll love revisiting it in this form. If you’re a Nintendo fan coming from Skyrim, be prepared for an ambitious but demanding adventure that is a little rough around the edges.

Summary

Pros

• As engaging as it was two decades ago
• Highly simulated world
• Impressive visuals even on Switch 2 including raytracing
• Mouse mode for old PC fans like myself

Cons

• Added instability especially in handheld mode
• Legacy bugs may be annoying to anyone without nostalgia for them
• Performance issues from other platforms are only worse here

A review code was provided by the publisher.

Worldwide Releases

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• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered [S2]

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