RetroGaming

To me this sadly is a clear sign that Bethesda has peeked.

They've re-released Skyrim a billion times, now they're re-releasing Oblivion, no news if The Elders Scrolls 6 development has even started yet, and Starfield is a hot mess.

Feels like they're milking out the last possible drops of profit out of their IPs before closing down...

Engine and Technology: The game will use a hybrid engine approach combining Unreal Engine 5 with Bethesda’s original Creation Engine

I have a bad feeling about this. Somewhat ironically, UE4 seemed to be much more stable than 5, but maybe it's my aging computer (now 7 years old). I'm only slightly optimistic.

Two things I wonder are how mod support will work for it, and whether they'll make some adjustments to the imperial capital. In the opening cinematic, you see a guard walking on the wall, the camera zooms out and the city just looks tiny

Oblivion is an excellent game. I'm not sure how much an official remake can bring to the table. Maybe a Skyrim-esque UI would be welcome.

What I'd really want would be a Morrowind remake. The world design and writing was beyond excellent, but the mechanics side had quite a bit of jank and the UI wasn't the best. Would love a mildly Oblivionised Morrowind. Just don't Skyrimise it - Oblivion had just enough RPG stuff, while Skyrim at times feels more like a story-action game rather than a RPG.

I hope they don't embark on a purge of all the original versions across the web, as is the trend at the moment from likes of Blizzard, and shackle old titles with new restrictions.

Engine and Technology: The game will use a hybrid engine approach combining Unreal Engine 5 with Bethesda’s original Creation Engine, promising modern enhancements while preserving gameplay mechanics.

Uh-oh...

So the community loves Morrowind but they remaster Oblivion?

Why?

The Bethesda that made good games is dead and gone. It's just several shareholders and Tom in a trench coat wearing its skin like a poncho hoping you won't notice the smell.

People are going to buy it. It's going to have "Mixed" reviews and support will be dropped by 2026. It's going to be a broken, buggy mess on release, break modding and be an overall weak experience.

Why buy it? It's gonna suck.

Possibly unpopular opinion: You shouldn't be allowed to refund Bethesda games. You should just be told that any reasonable person would know better than to buy a post Fallout 4 Bethesda game within a year of launch and you should not be covered under any refund policy.

I hope Skyblivion isn't affected by this.

The magic system is better than the one in Skyrim, which is a low bar to clear. I was always disappointed by the rudimentary quality of the NPC AI in Oblivion because of the incredible (as it turns out, literally) promises Bethesda was making before release. I remember reading about it in a game magazine and being enthralled with the possibilities... Then it turned out to be what it is. Morrowind was the first video game RPG that I truly, deeply immersed myself in and the quality of that immersion depended on a highly textual approach combined with a world that often surprises and makes demands of you, while also giving you a great deal of leeway in how you negotiate its challenges. After that, Oblivion felt like a failed attempt to move away from relying on writing, and Bethesda has confined itself to failing in that direction ever since, while importantly never failing to make plenty of money doing so.

I liked the story and experience of Oblivion despite all of this, even though it felt like a very limited realisation of its own creative aims. I have high hopes for Skyblivion still, and will look forward to seeing a more lovingly, thoughtfully crafted rendition.

Maybe they'll make the province a jungle like it used to be in lore

Remakes are a cheaper way to make AAA games but how good it will be depends on whether it aims to remaster the old game or be an actual remake as a modern game.

RPG has moved on a lot since 2006, and Bethesda's Starfield shows that they haven't really learnt the lessons. Switcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldurs Gate 3 have all taken RPG forward particularly in a narrative sense. Starfield felt like.old hat and focused on a big empty world.

While I'm sure some people will enjoy an Oblivion remake, it'd really need to push things forward to be worth playing. The Witcher 1 is being remade and they seem to be approaching it as an attempt to bring it up to be more on par with the Witcher 3. That is the kind of approach that would make an Oblivion remake interesting. Not just a port and asset update. So we will need to know the actual details to judge.

But ultimately people just want the next Elder Scrolls game. I just hope they learn the lessons from Starfield.

I only played Skyrim until about two months ago. I actually got either daggerfall or Morrowind ages ago bundled with a graphics card but never got it working on my machine back then. About 2 months ago, I played oblivion for the first time* and... Mostly enjoyed it. It's clear Skyrim had a lot of quality-of-life improvements (empty bodies/containers labeled, dungeon runback after completion, lock picking, and some other things) but also did away with some cool stuff (verticality in levels (springheel boots, athletics, acrobatics), meaningful water level bits, ability scores, and more) that I missed a lot going back into Skyrim.

*I will say I did play through the tutorial of oblivion like 1.5 or 2 years ago and hated it so much I uninstalled. Carry weight and not understanding a number of things made me not like it. I think watching videos of people playing gave me more background on the game, lore, and perhaps most importantly mechanics that made it much more enjoyable. It would not surprise me if other skyrim-only players had similar experience.

Going to be interesting. I sort of think remakes are the logical business path for them to take, since they're struggling so much with creating new titles. But at the same time, remakes kind of make rather little sense, since these games never had much of a story.

Personally, I do not think that Skyrim is better than Oblivion, but convincing a broader audience of that is going to be tricky.
Do you care for playing the remake of a previous iteration, if you're still only halfway through ~~the 17th rerelease of~~ Skyrim?
And if you did want more content like Skyrim, didn't you play Oblivion already (which is still quite playable)?

Howsabout they release Elder fuckin' Scrolls 6 already?

That said Oblivion was my favourite after Morrowind

How exactly does combining UE5 and the Creation Engine work?

Good to know they still just want to release old games again with no effort being put into doing something new.

"We need to go back!" - Tom Howards