The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Review

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I wasn’t asked to review The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. I played it this summer just out of curiosity. I’ve been writing for RPG Site for almost ten years, and while I can’t play every RPG that comes out (nobody can!), I usually manage to experience and write about a good variety each year. Although The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim wasn’t one of the very first RPGs I played, it was still important to me, and I’ve always wanted to explore older Bethesda games.

The unexpected release of a remaster of Oblivion earlier this year felt like a good chance to address a missing piece in my gaming experience. I think I went into it more as a study than anything else. It wasn’t a feeling of wanting to revisit the past or a genuine desire to play – it felt more like a task. I felt I *should* play Oblivion because it’s a significant game I ought to experience, which is a bit circular in its reasoning. It might help me better analyze other RPGs, or perhaps I could finally understand a game I’d been aware of, but intentionally avoided, since it first came out almost twenty years ago; I wasn’t completely certain.

I recall working part-time in retail during my transition from high school to college, around when Oblivion first came out. Back then, I knew it was popular, but it just wasn’t my kind of game. I was more into games like Final Fantasy XII and Xenosaga Episode III instead. Over time, though, I really started to enjoy first-person RPGs – or at least RPGs you could play from a first-person view. It began with games like Skyrim, and eventually included titles like Fallout: New Vegas and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (I got around to that one later).  Just this year, I’ve played at least 4 games like that. So, it’s safe to say I didn’t realize what I was missing when I initially dismissed Oblivion.

To give you some context, Oblivion is quite similar to Skyrim in many respects, which isn’t surprising. Although comparing them in that order might feel a little forced, it reflects my experience, and I want to be honest about that. Essentially, after a series of events at the beginning of the game, you’re tasked with traveling across Cyrodil, with the empire’s fate resting on your shoulders. At that point, I did what I considered the most sensible thing: I explored the entire map, finding all the locations and quests, before continuing with the main storyline – and I believe I had every right to do so.

Even though the Oblivion remaster received a fresh coat of paint, it took me some time to get used to how it presented itself. Having recently played games like Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Avowed, and even Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon this year, Oblivion felt a little rigid in comparison. I often revisit older games – I’ve played the original two Fallout titles long after they were first released – but Oblivion needed more adjustment than usual. I think it was either the somewhat mechanical animations or the generally subdued green and brown color scheme of the environments, but it just didn’t quite click for me.

When I look back at the screenshots I took while playing the remaster, it’s a bit strange how my feelings don’t quite match the images – Oblivion Remastered can genuinely look beautiful. I believe the main reasons I didn’t find it visually more impressive were the character animations and the repetitive environments. It’s those elements that held it back for me.

From a gameplay standpoint, a major point of discussion revolves around level scaling. Even though I didn’t play Oblivion when it was first released, I still heard a lot of debate about how excessive the scaling was in that game. While the Remaster has made some important changes to core mechanics, particularly how character leveling works, my impression is that the overall scaling effects remain largely unchanged. It’s worth noting that a system that adjusts enemy or item stats based on the player’s stats isn’t new, and isn’t limited to Western RPGs – consider almost any SaGa game, for example.

I’ll admit, I was unsure how to even begin writing about this. My thoughts on the scaling issues in Oblivion’s remaster are definitely influenced by looking back over the last 20 years, and I’m pretty sure everything worth saying was already discussed back in 2006. I wondered if I could really add anything new to the discussion at this point?

The biggest thing I realized while playing Oblivion Remaster is that, even knowing about the game’s scaling system and how it generally worked, I still got annoyed by the same issues I’d read about years ago. Specifically, exploring didn’t feel very rewarding because enemies got stronger no matter how much *I* improved, and finding items felt like the result of a calculation rather than a thoughtful design choice. As I leveled up, so did everything else – both the enemies and the loot I discovered. While Skyrim (and other games) also have this, Oblivion really stands out as a key example of it.

The main selling point of a system like this is simple: you never waste time as a player, and you’re always making some kind of progress. Oblivion guarantees you won’t find equipment or enemies that are significantly weaker than you, and anything you discover in a chest could be an upgrade to what you’re currently using. However, despite these good intentions, the outcome was often feeling trapped in a never-ending cycle, and rarely feeling like I’d truly advanced. It felt like an endless treadmill, and actual progress was hard to come by.

To add to the issues, the few difficulty settings available dramatically changed how the game played. On the normal Adept setting, I quickly felt overpowered after finding a simple bow. But if I increased the difficulty to Expert, I was constantly using potions just to survive. For this playthrough of the remaster, I chose to stick with the easier setting to avoid getting stuck and frustrated, as I knew the game was designed to be challenging. While overcoming difficult challenges in RPGs can be very satisfying, it only feels good if the player has enough tools to deal with them.

What made the experience even worse was the uninspired exploration of the environment in Cyrodil. Most locations on the map fell into one of just four categories – caves, forts, mines, or ancient Ayleid ruins. And the first three of those were often very much alike. Being someone who likes to fully explore everything, I’d often clear out each area, defeating around 12-20 enemies, find a chest that *might* contain something useful, and then move on to the next unremarkable marker on my map. It felt repetitive and lacked depth. It was disappointing.

Even if a quest eventually sent me back to a place I’d already been, the game was set up so that the item or enemy I needed for that quest wouldn’t appear until I returned. It was very rare to find things ahead of schedule. This meant I didn’t feel motivated to explore unless the game specifically told me to, and that wasn’t a great experience. Finding things “early” was only possible in uncommon situations. Exploration felt more like a chore than an adventure.

Finally, something about Oblivion that I hadn’t really understood after playing it for about twenty years was how the Oblivion Gates actually functioned. As the game’s story unfolds, several rifts – or “gates” – to the Daedric realm appear all over Cyrodil. The player is meant to fight their way through these and close them in exchange for rewards. These side quests mostly focus on combat, which isn’t where Oblivion excels, in my view. After completing a few of these story-related gates, I started to actively avoid them.

Finally, I really didn’t enjoy the story in The Shivering Isles, which is the main expansion included in this remaster. It takes place in a world completely separate from the events in Cyrodil, and features a Daedric character I found uninteresting, all within a setting that felt like a weak imitation of Alice in Wonderland. It just didn’t click with me. Luckily, because it’s so disconnected from the core game, my dislike of the expansion didn’t really affect my overall experience with Oblivion Remastered.

On a more positive note to finish, I really liked a lot of the popular guild quests – particularly the one for the Thieves’ Guild. The Dark Brotherhood questline *does* have a surprising and enjoyable twist midway through, but I found the Thieves’ Guild’s story and characters to be a little more touching and stayed with me longer. It was a really clever storytelling moment when Grey Fox explained exactly how the curse of his Nocturnal Cowl worked, and it genuinely surprised me – I’m glad I didn’t have it spoiled beforehand.

Looking back at what I’ve written, I’m surprised by how critical I am of the Oblivion Remaster as a whole. I’m still happy I played it and formed my own opinion instead of relying on what others said, but ultimately, it felt like a disappointing game stuck in the past, held back by some major flaws. Specifically, the game lacked a compelling main story, the world felt repetitive throughout, and the way enemies scaled to my level was often frustrating, all of which really impacted my enjoyment.

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2025-10-02 15:58