Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion was an instant hit back when it came out in 2006 for its huge open world, an abundance of varied and interesting quests, and tons of different ways to build your character with magic, melee, and archery — all things that made it stand out compared to its peers at the time. However, the fantasy RPG also quickly became known for its hilarious jank, with players highly amused by painfully awkward conversations between NPCs, nonsensical NPC behaviors, goofy voice acting, and bizarre physics glitches (among other things).
Fans have continued looking back at the 20-year-old (man, I feel old) title with a great fondness for many years, to the point where comical and popular memes have spawned from the clips of silly Oblivion moments you can find on YouTube channels like Bacon_. With that in mind, I was a bit nervous when Bethesda shadow dropped Oblivion Remastered earlier this week, fearing that it and partner Virtuos Games may have tried to “fix” the accidental and humorous absurdity that contributed to how entertaining the original was.
What was immediately apparent mere hours after release, though, is what while Oblivion Remastered gives the classic RPG a visual and mechanical glow up, it’s perfectly preserved all of its chucklesome quirks. One only has to take a look through the top posts from the Oblivion subreddit right now to see this, though my favorite example is a classic meme from Bacon_ that they’ve recreated a full seven years later with the new remaster.
The original video from early 2018 — now up to a staggering 18 million views on YouTube — captures an organic moment from the original Oblivion in which a thief NPC threatens the player and takes 100 Gold from them…only to then bizarrely not care when they notice the player stealing the money back, asserting that it’s “worthless to him anyway.”
It’s a hilarious exchange that perfectly captures how silly and outright dumb the game was, which is why I was overjoyed to see that Bacon_ got the interaction to play out in the exact same way in the new remake — and in the same place on the map, no less. Oblivion Remastered may boast gorgeous Unreal Engine 5 visuals and feature smoother, less janky combat, but at the end of the day, it still has original game’s heart and soul at its core.
Bacon_ has also remade another of their memes at the time of writing as well: a new version of a clip of Rena Bruiant commenting that she loves dogs, only for her husband to immediately attack one of their canine pets seconds later. Admittedly, though, his “YEEHAUGH!” battle cry in the older video is much better than the less dramatic “Hough!” in the new one.
The faithfulness that Oblivion Remastered shows to the original game is likely a large part of why it’s performing so well (as is the fact that for many younger players, this is essentially a brand new The Elder Scrolls game). The game is blowing up Steam right now, and is also available to play on Xbox and PC (not PS5) with Xbox Game Pass. Its MSRP price is $49.99, but notably, you can get the Steam version for just $41.49 at Fanatical.
