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Close Shut the Jaws of Oblivion

You can play the Unreal-powered The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster today

"Surprise" dropped today, the game overhauls leveling and graphics.

Samuel Axon – | 215
A screenshot showing the imperial city in the distance
The Oblivion remaster runs on Unreal Engine—but Bethesda's own engine is still involved. Credit: Bethesda
The Oblivion remaster runs on Unreal Engine—but Bethesda's own engine is still involved. Credit: Bethesda

The worst-kept secret in the gaming industry in 2025 is no longer a secret: Bethesda Game Studios' 2006 RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has been remastered, and that remaster has already been released on all supported platforms today.

A livestream featuring developer sound bites and gameplay footage ran on Twitch and YouTube today, making it official after years of leaks.

Oblivion was the immediate precursor to The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim, which became one of the most popular games of all time—but Oblivion was pretty popular in its time, too, and it was the first game in the franchise that would end up feeling at all modern by today's standards. (I personally will always love The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, though.)

Like Skyrim, it straddles the line between story-based fantasy RPG and systems-based, emergent gameplay playground. It's less structured and accessible than Skyrim, but it offers far more robust character customization. It's infamously janky, but largely in an endearing way for fans of the franchise. (Players who prefer a polished, curated experience should surely look elsewhere.)

The <em>Oblivion</em> livestream reveal.

The port was not handled directly by the original developer, Bethesda Game Studios. Rather, people within BGS worked closely with an outside developer, Virtuos.

Virtuos is a sprawling, multi-studio organization with a deep history as a support studio. It contributed to a whole range of games, like Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, The Outer Worlds, and more. It also was involved in some previous well-received remaster efforts and ports, including Assassin's Creed: The Ezio Collection and Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster. Based on the footage in Bethesda's reveal video today, it appears that Oblivion Remastered was largely developed by Virtuos Paris.

It's important to note that this is a remaster, not a remake. This project uses Unreal Engine, but only for the presentation aspects like graphics and audio. Bethesda's engine is still there handling the gameplay logic and systems.

That said, Virtuos has also made changes on that front. Most notably, today's announcement revealed that the remaster will have a completely overhauled leveling system, which is described as combining elements from Oblivion and Skyrim.

That will be welcome news for many players. In many ways, Oblivion feels like a modern game, but its leveling system—which incentivizes players to delay leveling up to grind certain skills—was controversial even when it launched. It's not completely clear what the new one will look like, but this is likely a case where most fans will consider any change a good one.

Other aspects of the game that are a bit odd and anachronistic are still in place, though, like the persuasion system for conversations with NPCs. Oblivion's appeal is largely about its jazzy gameplay systems, so the team likely didn't want to compromise that too much. Lockpicking is the same as before, too.

On the presentation side, Virtuos has added a much more robust lighting system than before, and the game looks hyper-detailed. NPC faces and talking animations have been overhauled for the better, but there are still some wacky-looking people. (Would we really have it any other way?)

A Khajiit character with detailed fur
Considerable effort has gone into remastering the character faces, as you can see on this Khajiit.
Bethesda
Considerable effort has gone into remastering the character faces, as you can see on this Khajiit. Bethesda
The UI has also been redone, but it follows the motif set by the original.
Bethesda
The UI has also been redone, but it follows the motif set by the original. Bethesda

All told, the stream made it look like we're getting a promising new coat of paint on a game that made an enormous impact when it first arrived in 2006 but which was overshadowed by Skyrim a few years later.

The Elder Scrolls VI is still in development, and Skyrim was much closer in time to Oblivion than it is to today. So apart from The Elder Scrolls Online, fans of the franchise have been experiencing a historic drought.

A remaster certainly isn't the same as a new game, but if Bethesda and Virtuos pulled it off, this release is sure to be popular.

The game is available on PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S for $50 today. It’s also on Game Pass.

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Samuel Axon Senior Editor
Samuel Axon is the editorial lead for tech and gaming coverage at Ars Technica. He covers AI, software development, gaming, entertainment, and mixed reality. He has been writing about gaming and technology for nearly two decades at Engadget, PC World, Mashable, Vice, Polygon, Wired, and others. He previously ran a marketing and PR agency in the gaming industry, led editorial for the TV network CBS, and worked on social media marketing strategy for Samsung Mobile at the creative agency SPCSHP. He also is an independent software and game developer for iOS, Windows, and other platforms, and he is a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied interactive media and software development.
215 Comments
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fensox
fensox
50 USD? The industry are attempting to raise the standard price to 70 USD to make a 50 USD retread seem palatable.
If you watch the developer direct video, this is a hell of a lot more than a retread. Their appears they have spent years of work overhauling this game. All new models, new voice acting, new systems, new lighting… They deserve fair payment for their work. It does not appear to be a cash grab like some other half baked remakes.
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