I think Bethesda has definitely fallen off in recent years, but I am a bit confused by the point this post is getting at. We learned at launch that Oblivion is a remaster, not a remake, and it’s just the original game running under the hood with a new coat of paint and some minor tweaks. And it’s a pretty high-effort remaster at that.

I just think it’s a bad example to use of how the company isn’t getting better, when the point of the remaster was to change as little of the core game as possible. It’s as good now as it was back then but it’s still a 19-year-old game.

Starfield is what should be killing everyone’s expectations of Elder Scrolls 6.

When I saw the post’s title I was hoping for a good, perhaps even balanced, critique of the remake’s choices, or the underlying engine’s shortcomings, or perhaps even the original designs.

All I got was “dumpster fire”.

There‘s no Oblivion remake. Go to the Steam Page and carefully read word for word what it is you‘re talking about.

It might be nostalgia speaking, but I think the real issue is that a 20 year old game can actually be this good and popular. How can it be that it is more enjoyable than anything else I’ve bought over the last year (at least)? Doesn’t that say that game companies in general have dropped the ball on game design, focusing on graphics and money over content and gameplay? As I said, it might just be me stuck in my wonderfully comforting blanket of nostalgia…

You don’t seem to know what a remaster is. Most importantly, it’s not a remake and the two terms are not interchangeable.

Just to clarify one thing while i agree with you on some stuff this is not a remake it’s a remaster. the OG game engine is running underneath and UE5 for just the updated models and terrain. The fact they are charging so much for it is what kills me. What this should have been is a $30 game of the year edition and maybe an discount or a free upgrade of you owned the original like they did with doom and quake remasters that nightdive did.

It is literally not a remake, and how is it half assed? I have a low to mid range PC and the game runs smooth as hell, and it’s gorgeous.

Maximum dooming for a game that almost everyone likes. lmao

half assed remake

which is exactly why they called it a remaster. it was never their intention to remake the game.

Personally I think most of the stuff that went wrong with Starfield were design choices related to space travel and many many planets, which won’t be an issue with TES of Fallout going forward. So if they stay in their lane I don’t see any reason why they can’t keep churning out decent titles in those series, even if they maybe don’t reach the same heights.

It’s a remaster of a game from 2006 with a fresh coat of paint and some QOL changes and that’s basically all it ever could be. 70% of the game did not age well and they honestly did the best they could. If they did a complete remake and “modernized” the game all the old-school fans would be pissed. If they kept it as true to the original as possible besides a facelift they’d make it harder for new players to want to pick it up. I feel like a good 7/10 was the best they could shoot for under most circumstances.

And if you ask anyone where Bethesda fell off, depending on which game was their first, they will all give you a different answer. For me Morrowind and Oblivion are the best in the series and that’s with over 500 hours in Skyrim. They’ve been dumbing their games down with each new iteration since the 90s as they try to “modernize” the newest game each time and reach new audiences. Like, good luck playing Morrowind or Daggerfall these days without losing your patience in a matter of hours. And Morrowind especially is barely playable without mods these days.

I still hated Starfield, though. Gave it the old college try and left so underwhelmed I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about the story.

I see a lot of people downplaying the remaster as a fresh coat of ue5 paint. I’m playing the game, having disliked the original, and I’m loving it. I’m kind of impressed with what they did with the game, basically remaking the world elements in ue5 and leaving the gameplay as it was with minor tweaks. Fresh coat of paint feels more like rip out the drywall and do it again. Just leave the structure alone. Like, the electrical and plumbing is still there and feels the same but it looks completely different.

Games like this dont come very often, so if anything, this remaster and BG3 should raise the bar on what we should expect from a new TES game.

You think this is a half assed remake? To me this feels like a significant upgrade (and not just to graphics) while maintaining the core experience and I’m kinda shocked at how good it is.

You’re not going into depth on how it is half assed. The only thing I can complain about is some performance drops when travelling outside, but I imagine they’ll patch that out at some point. If you’re referring to the classic oblivion stuff like goofy npcs and most of them having the same voice actor tbh I’d be pissed if they changed that

I personally don’t really pre order or set up prior expectations for games these days. No matter the company’s prior track record a game is only judged on its own, not because how good a previous game was. Oblivion is great because it is, In my opinion, better than Skyrim. It is dated by today’s standards. Heck starfield was dated as well. Even when elder scrolls vi comes out I don’t have any high expectations for it.

Lower expectations…?

Bethesda Game Studios has been on the decades-long trend of watering down all their proper RPG elements. Morrowind is significantly more jank in combat and movement than Oblicion. Oblivion significantly more jank than Skyrim.

However, Skyrim is over simplified compared to Oblivion in all of its RPG mechanics, and has removed a number of gameplay features that were previously present (e.g. Spell crafting). In turn Oblivion is itself more mechanically shallow than Morrowind, significantly lacking in such things as speech options.

The Oblivion Remaster is so more a reminder of something we’ll never get anymore; an open world RPG that isn’t as weighed down as Morrowind and not as over-simplified as Skyrim (though honestly complex NPC interactions need to come back from Morrowind).

TES VI will likely have better combat than Skyrim, but still incredibly dated compared to other games, and mechanics that can barely be called “RPG” anymore.