Oblivion remastered Technology, a Critical Yet Realistic Perspective

[PrometheusTS]

Oblivion Remastered presents itself as an ambitious project, visually appealing thanks to partial integration with Unreal Engine, yet still deeply rooted in legacy mechanics that feel increasingly outdated by modern standards. While the hybrid engine gives the game a graphical facelift, many core aspects such as animations, physics, combat systems, and world interactivity remain stuck in the past.

 

It feels like a step forward in certain areas, but two steps back in others. The animation system lacks fluidity and responsiveness, character movement often feels disconnected from the world, and features like body morphing, target lock-on, or reactive environments are sorely missing. The open world, once vast and immersive, now feels more like a confined fishbowl, especially when compared to modern benchmarks like Red Dead Redemption 2, where terrain deformation, dynamic vegetation, and life-like world interactions set a new standard for immersion.

 

One wonders whether Oblivion Remastered is more of an experiment, perhaps a testbed to explore the feasibility of a future TES VI built fully in Unreal Engine, rather than a definitive platform for long-term modding investment.

 

There’s no denying the nostalgic value or the brilliance of some of its core ideas: the handcrafted world, rich quests, and the once-revolutionary Radiant AI. But in today’s world, those systems could be reimagined with actual machine learning or procedural depth. And that highlights the issue: modding, especially large-scale projects like new lands, quest overhauls, or total conversions, demands tremendous time, energy, and dedication. It's worth asking whether that effort should be poured into a hybrid game that lacks full modding support and feels technically behind in so many key areas.

 

Even Skyrim, despite years of modding and visual upgrades, still struggles to match the depth and polish of modern engines in terms of realism, physics, and animation. In that context, Oblivion Remastered might serve as a nostalgic bridge, but perhaps not the best foundation for future-forward content creation.

Edited April 30 by PrometheusTS

[Mitchdied]

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The animation system lacks fluidity and responsiveness, character movement often feels disconnected from the world, and features like body morphing, target lock-on, or reactive environments are sorely missing.

You're, essentially, asking for a remake, which this is not. It's extremely ambitious for a remaster, but it's still a remaster, and it portrays itself as such. I would argue that the graphics overhaul does give the erroneous impression that this is a remake, but I don't know what could have been done about that other than worse graphics lol.

 

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One wonders whether Oblivion Remastered is more of an experiment, perhaps a testbed to explore the feasibility of a future TES VI built fully in Unreal Engine

I hadn't considered this, but I *really* like this theory. UE5 entered early access in May of 2021, promising to revolutionize the industry with Nanite/Lumen. That same year, development started on the Remaster. It would make sense for BGS to want to learn more about the tech, and the timeline fits. 

[PrometheusTS]

A question is , is it possible to add by modding the missing features exposed above? 

[RomanR]

I believe yes, to some extend at least. But as you pointed out, this is not a game targeted as next-gen unlike the original being at its time created for high-end PC and consoles which even didn't exist yet (XBox 360 and Playstation 3). Oh yes, I still have an issue of Level magazine from February 2005 in which this game was first previewed, full of wonders about its graphics and info about revolutionary Radiant AI which promises to make NPCs behave realistic and not be driven by scripts or hard-coded behavior. Today its features looking obsolete, but back then the HW was struggling enough to just run it smoothly (on XBox or Playstation mostly at 30FPS in interiors, but outside 20FPS or below was quite normal, my PC was barely capable to run it).

In my eyes a remaster is a good-bye dedicated to fans of Oblivion who play it even after these years and I too wonder if someone will dedicate same effort and time in modding it as for original. Will be an effort there to solve problems and things once solved in original again for remaster? Time will tell if we will see such time consuming projects like Engine Bug Fixes or Unofficial Oblivion Patch(es), Open Cities and various famed overhauls ported to remaster too.

Edited May 1 by RomanR
typos

[Pellape]

@RomanRWell just compare the activity we used to have in the old Oblivion forum, compared to the activity here, well at least for the moment. One reason might be that most Remastered players, do focus to play the game in the original state first as it is only a week since the release, and later more might try to start modding it. I myself as an example is in no hurry to start making mods for it, but I do have some ideas about things that is missing and that really needs to be added, like working containers in houses as I can not store anything at this moment and I asked about it a few days back here but no answers yet. I do guess I start to make an alchemy sorter and a arrow sorter, which will be easier to make now as OBSE64 was released April 28th. One question I did ask myself is: Is it really necessary to store anything really? I do cheat with Carry Weight anyway (Encumbrance)...    This also makes houses completely useless. But the inventory is growing with stuff that I wanna keep.

If I will do something about it, I will add a menu to 2 new chests in CS, well if I get CS to work that is. Write scripts that moves stuff from the player to those 2 containers (arrows and ingredients), as we can access stuff inside containers, but I have never seen that we can add stuff back to them. 2 containers in the cheap house in the Water Front District...     We see, if and when I start with it.     If I do it, it will be similar to the COBL scripts for Oldblivion.

When Oblivion came out 2006, we did start immediate to mod it and we also got extremely frustrated over the difference between the games, well modding Morrowind and Oblivion that is. If I did not had contact with Qarl during that period, I would most likely stopped modding that year.    He helped me a lot to understand Oblivion modding 2006 as he was good at figure stuff out. We also have a nice thread here that might help a lot to get mods to work properly. We see.   

What did differ most 2006. Well how to make normals and how to import and export new 3D from Blender. So frustrating that year. Those stuff is easy to make today, but it was not 2006.

What do I think about the Remastered? It is so good looking and it is fun to play Oblivion again, even if it is the same quests that we played so many times. But I like it and have fun playing it.   

I did check with CoPilot 2 min ago, about if it was able to find out how many that plays the new game? Answer: 216,784 concurrent players on April 27, 2025 Oblivion Remastered.    and currently has around 73,497 players online. Is it good or bad?  IDK??  Maybe it is to early to say as well...

By the way, I am also thinking about another upcoming game, based on TES 1 and 2...  Check it out. Release?  2029 maybe... (Map will be 100 times bigger than Skyrim),  Early Access Dec 2025, with a tiny map (4 times bigger than Skyrim only)  They do share their development with the community, not as Bethesda and Virtuous are doing, complete silence.  https://www.waywardrealms.com/  It is based on Unreal 5.3 and it will have mod support 2029, not in the EA beta 2025.

 

Edited May 2 by Pellape

[Pellape]

@PrometheusTSI must agree, even if I have fun playing the game right now. It was released to early, unfinished, so: from a none nostalgic point of view, lets say I have never played any TES games before this one?  What would my reaction then be? Well, that the game is garbage, a piece of sh*t. If this is my first TES game, would I ever try another? No Way, never. Is the current state of the game, something that Bethesda should be proud of? No way. 

Still...  I do like it and I have fun and with future updates, it might work as intended.     It is really fun to play it as it is right now, with no mods, no cheats (except carry weight) and it is challenging and a bit different, what I am usually used to, a fully modded Oldblivion.     I do miss my own house mod, with all its "odd" and useful tools made with xOBSE and Blender.   

I see my current play-through as a beta test more or less. Taking it slow, trying to do stuff I never did in the original game really, in a slow phase. What else is there to do? Go back to Skyrim or F4? Nope, I am tired of Skyrim and all Fallout games right now really. Old Oblivion and fix my bugs in my own mods? Well I do not feel like doing that really...  Not now...    There is some demands in my PM about a few bugs, that I made...    Well 2 only...     Can I fix them?  Well IDK. I do not know right now what is causing them. One cell is crashing in my house mod. Does the mod work without that cell? Yes   Honestly, I do miss DragonTheDrake to guide me with this bug, the Oblvion forum old moderator, that disappeared.  

Edited May 3 by Pellape

[RomanR]

Wayward Realms doesn't seem bad, but such big world raises question about how interestingly will be filled. Will be there enough interesting things to do, rewards to find and lore to visit such world? TES 1 and 2 was too interesting games to at least try, but I unstalled Daggerfall in the end. I think that Oblivion Remaster is a good choice to show things of the past, yet to not overhelm new players with weird old school rules and to not drow them in too big world without meaning. 

I quite worry about quality of new games of Elder Scrolls series, now with Starfield not fullfiling the hopes for interesting game and as some key developers and people left Bethesda. We are in times there it's not enough to make open world game just because, there must be something worthy to visit it.

Athough Unreal Engine is a top one, I don't like it much. Even in back times I found it quite resource hungry and games made with it not much stable.

[PrometheusTS]

I agree too , what worries me the most for THES VI is possible woke politics forced to be swallowed to play the game , we already seen this happening in Oblivion like the No gender selection and the Flattening of Women , for some weird reason . This is very worrying for me and if it will result in a Woke game I will probably pass, despite I have rised with Elder scrolls games since Morrowind.

[M3ssiah]

The thing I am most interested in knowing is how exactly the Gamebryo Engine and Unreal Engine are interacting with each other. When we all initially found out that this is the approach they were taking, my first thought was that this should be great for modding. So far though, it seems to have only caused confusion. UE should make things like models, textures, animations, etc, much better to work with, but I guess I haven't fully understood how everything is working yet. 

Edited May 9 by M3ssiah