Skip to main content GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The Games, Movies, TV & Comics You Love Search GamesRadar+ View Profile Entertainment Tabletop Gaming Toys & Collectibles Retro Gamer Total Film Gaming Magazines Why subscribe? Subscribe from just £3 Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love Try a single issue or save on a subscription Issues delivered straight to your door or device From£9.99View Nintendo Switch 2 Elden Ring Nightreign Oscars 2025 The Elder Scrolls The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Oblivion remake leaks suggest Skyrim's cooler sibling is making a comeback, but I'm worried a modern makeover could bulldoze over the weirdness that makes it great Andrew Brown 14 March 2025 Opinion | Getting more people into Bethesda's all-timer RPG is worth the risk, but please keep Speechcraft's persuasion pizza When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Bethesda / Fandom) Lately, I've been thinking about The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion a lot. A month-long obsession with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – in my eyes the first true spiritual successor to Oblivion – will do that to you, but I'm also fresh off another adventure in the Imperial capital. With rumors of an Unreal Engine 5 Oblivion remake at an all-time high, there's little space for anything but Cyrodiil in this RPG-addled brain. I can't speak to the validity of these leaks, which claim we'll see an Oblivion remake as soon as April. But I do have thoughts (regrettably) on what the re-release could mean for Bethesda's 2006 gem. There's an opportunity to rope in the generations who may have missed Skyrim's predecessor – and good reason to do so, as Oblivion remains the richer choice for older-school RPG sickos – but it also runs the risk of buffing out the quirks and oddities that gives Cyrodiil its charm. Sleeping rather soundly (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) Taking inspiration (Image credit: Warhorse Studios) Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 dev weighs in on why it's getting harder to survive in RPGs – "If a game is 150 hours and all of your sessions are the same, you're gonna get bored" Rose-tinted glasses put to one side: Oblivion wasn't perfect. It would be difficult to play it for the first time in 2025, especially if you're coming in off the back of Skyrim. It's now awkward (at best) to run on PC, combat has all the weight of kicking a deflated football, levelling up is bizarrely complicated, and most dungeons are identical. You may like "Instant gratification in gaming has become a problem" – Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 dev says the RPG is meant to feel like a spiritual successor to Oblivion and Morrowind Elder Scrolls co-creator is "super-grateful" for fan remakes, but says their existence is bittersweet: Daggerfall might have been "flaky and weird," but "no one had to recreate Casablanca" More subjectively, it looks weird. I wouldn't change Oblivion's visuals if Bethesda promised to hand-deliver The Elder Scrolls 6 to my door tomorrow – but that's a bias shaped by the memory and nostalgia of playing when its graphics were cutting-edge. To newcomers, my charming potato people are just potato people. It's the same reason I have no plans to play Metal Gear Solid 2 until Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater arrives – I missed it the first time around, and now can't get past the clunkiness that's second-nature to those who didn't. If a glossy Unreal Engine 5 overhaul is the difference between someone skipping over Oblivion and getting to enjoy it for the first time, that alone justifies a remake. Likewise, there are a few systems that even the most die-hard fan can't be too precious about. Cyrodiil's repetitive dungeon templates don't add to the game's personality, nor does level-scaling that can juice up enemies beyond your means for the crime of passively levelling Acrobatics. If Oblivion wants to be on par with modern RPGs, its remake needs to have the confidence to change these areas rather than keep them trapped in mid-noughties amber. (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) That said, there's a real risk of going too far. When Bethesda followed up Oblivion with Skyrim, it made a conscious effort to streamline and simplify certain elements in order to chase a more mainstream audience. It worked – even now, few RPGs can measure against the mass appeal of Skyrim – but came at the cost of depth. Some changes, like platelegs and platebodies being merged into single-entity armor sets, didn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things. But not being able to make your own spells, or swapping Oblivion's wonderful lockpicking minigame for Fallout's? That stung. Improvement isn't objective. Something feeling dated doesn't automatically invalidate the conscious design choice that brought it to life in the first place. It would be all-too easy to swap out Oblivion's quirky Speechcraft wheel for regular ol' skill checks, but you would lose a chunk of its soul that frankly doesn't feel negotiable. Take away the persuasion pizza, or the unsettling and vaguely reptilian way NPCs stare as you play roulette with their friendship, and you take away a strange yet endearing bit of personality. Admittedly, this could all be the bias seeping – but Oblivion is strange, it is weird, and I can't imagine it existing without that. Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. An Oblivion remake shouldn't be The Elder Scrolls' own Ship of Theseus, but neither should it be a fresh coat of paint and nothing else. Assuming the project is real (remember – we've not actually heard anything official), I'd like to think Bethesda will be just as precious about Oblivion's fey weirdness. An instinctive part of me will always be prickly at the thought of meddling with one of the best RPGs to ever do it, but that comes from a place of love – and if a remake can inspire that same passion in others, then blessings of Mystara upon ye developers. The Elder Scrolls fans are celebrating "the unintentional comedy of Oblivion" See more PC Gaming Features Xbox Series X PlayStation Andrew Brown Social Links Navigation Features Editor Andy Brown is the Features Editor of Gamesradar+, and joined the site in June 2024. Before arriving here, Andy earned a degree in Journalism and wrote about games and music at NME, all while trying (and failing) to hide a crippling obsession with strategy games. When he’s not bossing soldiers around in Total War, Andy can usually be found cleaning up after his chaotic husky Teemo, lost in a massive RPG, or diving into the latest soulslike – and writing about it for your amusement. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. "Instant gratification in gaming has become a problem" – Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 dev says the RPG is meant to feel like a spiritual successor to Oblivion and Morrowind Elder Scrolls co-creator is "super-grateful" for fan remakes, but says their existence is bittersweet: Daggerfall might have been "flaky and weird," but "no one had to recreate Casablanca" Avowed is nothing like Bethesda's RPGs, but The Elder Scrolls 6 should take inspiration from its combat I get why Obsidian doesn't like The Elder Scrolls comparisons, but Avowed is the first RPG to have its hooks in me this deep since Skyrim took over my life 14 years ago Avowed's aversion to realism might not be the most immersive, but it's a breath of fresh air after the hardcore role-play of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 In 14 years I couldn't get through Skyrim, but smashed through Avowed in a weekend thanks to its bite-sized exploration and high-impact combat Latest in The Elder Scrolls Oblivion remake leaks suggest Skyrim's cooler sibling is making a comeback, but I'm worried a modern makeover could bulldoze over the weirdness that makes it great Skyrim is still an all-time great for asset reuse: this hunk of human flesh could be some poor guard's glute, or probably just a piece of repurposed beef The Elder Scrolls 6 NPC auction raises $85,000 as mystery bidder snags the win from a dedicated group of RPG enthusiasts Modder leading 13-year effort to remake Oblivion in Skyrim isn't worried about an official remake: "The fact Skyblivion is nearly in a releasable state is a miracle" Former Skyrim animator says "gameplay is the most important thing" for The Elder Scrolls 6 Skyrim's foremost geographer uses weather stats to explain how it actually feels to live in each of the iconic RPG's cities Latest in Features Oblivion remake leaks suggest Skyrim's cooler sibling is making a comeback, but I'm worried a modern makeover could bulldoze over the weirdness that makes it great The Bear star's new A24 cult thriller proves Ayo Edebiri needs to be the final girl in a horror movie LA Noire eat your heart out: This weird and wildly funny detective game saw me investigate a mysterious dead body as a broke cat in a suit We're only 3 months into 2025, but this year has already been stellar for RPG sickos like me – and it's showing no signs of slowing down From Skyrim to Baldur's Gate 3, spiders are universally horrible – but Avowed finds a way to make them worse than ever Tokyo Xtreme Racer is a novel throwback to classic PS2 racing games like Midnight Club, and I can't get enough of it More about the elder scrolls Skyrim is still an all-time great for asset reuse: this hunk of human flesh could be some poor guard's glute, or probably just a piece of repurposed beef The Elder Scrolls 6 NPC auction raises $85,000 as mystery bidder snags the win from a dedicated group of RPG enthusiasts The Bear star's new A24 cult thriller proves Ayo Edebiri needs to be the final girl in a horror movie See more latest Most Popular The Bear star's new A24 cult thriller proves Ayo Edebiri needs to be the final girl in a horror movie LA Noire eat your heart out: This weird and wildly funny detective game saw me investigate a mysterious dead body as a broke cat in a suit We're only 3 months into 2025, but this year has already been stellar for RPG sickos like me – and it's showing no signs of slowing down The 32 greatest Ben Affleck movies The Russo brothers hid an Avengers Easter egg in Netflix movie The Electric State ahead of their Marvel comeback – and I'm convinced it's teasing Scarlet Witch's return The Electric State ending explained: Who won the final battle and is Kid Cosmo still alive? From Skyrim to Baldur's Gate 3, spiders are universally horrible – but Avowed finds a way to make them worse than ever How to play the Assassin's Creed games in order (release date and chronological order) Tokyo Xtreme Racer is a novel throwback to classic PS2 racing games like Midnight Club, and I can't get enough of it Wicked: For Good release date, cast, story, and everything else you need to know about Wicked Part 2 GAME REVIEWS MOVIE REVIEWS Talisman 5th Edition review: "The characterful imperfections of the original game remain clear to see " WWE 2K25 review: "A colossal package even if you never go anywhere near Virtual Currency" Wanderstop review: "Exalting the transformative power of tea" Doggerland review: "A delicate dance of survival and management that doesn't feel weighted toward a single strategy" Split Fiction review: "Cements Hazelight as the master of co-op games" The Electric State review: "Although this may be their most visually stunning movie yet, it looks like the Russos are yet to find their footing outside of the MCU" Fight or Flight review: "Slick and silly action sequences garner well-earned John Wick and Bullet train comparisons" Mickey 17 Review: "Bong Joon Ho's best English movie to date and arguably Robert Pattinson's best movie ever" Captain America: Brave New World review: "Anthony Mackie's Cap earns his Stars and Stripes in this uneven, un-MCU thriller" The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep review – "A satisfying new anime adventure that harks back to the Netflix series' heyday" Daredevil: Born Again season 1 review: "There have been far worse Marvel projects, but few as disappointing as this" Reacher season 3 review: "Alan Ritchson's hero still rules as we get the best season yet" Yellowjackets season 3 review: "At its best when it leans all the way into its kookier – and scarier – side" Cobra Kai season 6, part 3 review: "Puts a near-perfect bow on Cobra Kai and the Karate Kid series" Invincible season 3 review: "Bigger, better, faster, stronger" GamesRadar+ is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site. Contact Future's experts Terms and conditions Privacy policy Cookies policy Advertise with us Review guidelines Write for us Accessibility Statement Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885. Please login or signup to comment Please wait...