By Azura, by Azura, by Azura – the rumors have been true. Yesterday, Bethesda set the web on fireplace by lastly pulling again the curtain on Virtuos’ remaster (or is it actually a remake?) of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. An ‘Elder Scrolls Direct’ of types culminated within the shock shadow-drop, which near-immediately reworked into a whole lot of 1000’s of concurrent gamers. This second of worldwide hype and celebration looks like a much-needed port within the present storm Bethesda Sport Studios has been dealing with lately. From conducting years-long harm management to rectify Fallout 76’s misfire launch, to the lackluster reception of its new sci-fi universe, Starfield, the studio’s most up-to-date output has had many followers asking the identical query: Has Bethesda misplaced the magic? There’s fiercer competitors within the RPG area as of late, with Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 and Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds franchise each garnering important acclaim as Elder Scrolls and Fallout non secular successors. However whereas Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 could also be years away from reclaiming their crowns, this re-release of Oblivion could also be a step in the appropriate route – simply not within the route you’d count on.
At its peak, Bethesda Sport Studios was an RPG juggernaut. In 2020, Microsoft’s leaked FTC documents revealed that Fallout 4 had bought 25 million units-to-date. The sport shifted over 5 million items in its first week alone in accordance to VGChartz. Likewise, in 2023 Todd Howard introduced Skyrim had crossed 60 million sales (although it’s value noting rereleasing it 50 occasions seemingly helped). So what about Starfield? Estimates put it at simply over three million units a year-and-a-half publish launch. Whereas taking into consideration Sport Cross subscribers (which might increase gamers if not gross sales) and Starfield’s lack of a PlayStation presence, this should nonetheless be one thing of a disappointment for Bethesda. And whereas there is a Starfield fanbase, it’s far smaller than that loved by The Elder Scrolls or Fallout, and even it has voiced displeasure with the sport’s first growth, Shattered Area.
This all leaves the developer with a giant drawback. With The Elder Scrolls 6 “years away” and Fallout 5 only a whisper within the hallowed halls of the studio’s corridors, how can this once-iconic RPG developer enchant their fanbase as soon as extra? The reply lies in its previous.
Rumours of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster started again in September 2023, when leaked Microsoft paperwork revealed plenty of unannounced Bethesda titles, together with a remaster of 2006’s landmark journey to Tamriel (it additionally contains one other fascinating remaster – we’ll get to that quickly). All was quiet till January 2025, when a former worker of Virtuos let slip extra particulars, dividing Elder Scrolls followers as to their authenticity just like the Stormcloaks vs. the Imperials. Lastly, final week the dam broke (albeit early), setting the web ablaze – there have been over 6.4 million Google searches for ‘The Elder Scrolls VI: Oblivion’, rising by 713% within the final week alone. At its peak, Bethesda’s reveal livestream had over half one million viewers watching. Regardless of the leaks (or maybe due to them), over 600,000 people tuned in to see a 19-year-old recreation re-revealed to them. The extreme fervent demand to play the remaster prompted low cost recreation key web sites like CDKeys to crash, and slowed Fanatical and Inexperienced Man Gaming to a crawl. As of yesterday, Steam’s concurrent gamers stood at 125,000 and the sport is firmly the #1 greatest vendor. The keenness Bethesda followers have for Oblivion burns as vivid because the flames that spill from the Oblivion gates themselves.
The message from gamers is obvious: in case you (re)construct it, they’ll come. What higher manner to preserve followers engaged and invested throughout these lengthy growth intervals than to invite them to make a journey again to the mysterious isles of Morrowind or the hollowed-out husk of the East Coast? From a business standpoint, it makes clear sense. Whereas Bethesda’s important growth workers toils away on long-gestating new initiatives, trusted companions like Virtuos can use historic blueprints to craft remasters in shorter time frames. Such remasters are based mostly on video games with built-in audiences, and for a lot of they’re the primary actual RPGs players could have sunk their tooth into throughout their respective generations. Restoring these works additionally invitations a complete new era to grow to be obsessive about the interior workings of the land of Tamriel or crawl out from the post-apocalyptic fallout into Las Vegas and D.C.
Bethesda has already strategically uplifted its personal catalogue as soon as earlier than. Fallout 4 was discounted by up to 75% through the Fallout TV present’s first season on Prime Video, alongside a cleverly scheduled next-gen replace which introduced over sure homages from the present. Consequently, Fallout 4 gross sales jumped over 7,500% in Europe alone regardless of being almost a decade previous.
Trying again to Microsoft’s leaked Bethesda roadmap, many famous {that a} Fallout 3 remaster was listed to observe Oblivion two years later. It’s necessary to notice the timelines from this unique presentation have shifted – Oblivion was initially cited as fiscal 12 months 2022. Nonetheless, assuming these unique gaps stay true, it seems a Fallout 3 remake may very well be on the playing cards for 2026 – simply in time for Fallout Season 2, coincidentally. Whereas a Fallout remaster appears inevitable now, given the second collection’ shift to New Vegas, may or not it’s doable that Bethesda’s early conversations with showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet imply {that a} shock New Vegas remake may very well be in retailer? Given the synchronicity of the present’s first season to Fallout 4’s vibe and aesthetic, may Bethesda level-up its craftiness much more for the upcoming New Vegas-centric second season? It shadow-dropped Oblivion – it’s not out of the realm of risk {that a} New Vegas Remastered trailer is mendacity in look ahead to us on the finish of Fallout Season 2’s finale.
Nonetheless, if there’s one recreation in Bethesda’s again catalogue that deserves to be remade probably the most, it’s undeniably The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Many Elder Scrolls followers have spent years fus-ro-dahing on the mountaintop for this, with one group of superfans going so far as to remake Morrowind using Skyrim’s tools, ala Skyblivion. Nonetheless, Morrowind will not be as simple a recreation to remake as Oblivion. It sits on the precipice between Bethesda’s evolutions as a studio – it’s actually constructed in another way to our trendy understanding of an Elder Scrolls recreation. It’s solely partially voiced, many of the story is informed by textual content, there aren’t any quest markers (gamers should actually write down instructions given by NPCs, save for these with excellent reminiscences), and fight physics are non-existent. Whereas Virtuos was ready to overhaul a number of the extra finicky techniques of Oblivion, the whole lot of Morrowind is a finicky system. It’s why many love the sport, but it surely’s additionally why it’s tough to remake. To remake Morrowind is a harmful tightrope. Modernize it an excessive amount of and also you threat shedding the magic it was initially imbued with. Depart too many antiquated techniques in place, and it’ll really feel worse than an almighty skooma hangover.
When a studio turns into the icon of a gaming sub-genre, the problem is that this: how do you innovate and evolve while holding onto your viewers? Rockstar Video games has saved Grand Theft Auto gamers happy for over a decade by the ever-expanding multiplayer world of GTA On-line, which in flip fuels the eye-wateringly costly rumored funds for GTA 6. Bethesda’s bread-and-butter is richly detailed, expansive worlds which are resolutely single-player – Elder Scrolls On-line and Fallout 76 simply don’t hit in the identical manner. Nonetheless, what’s clear by the overwhelming response to Virtuos’ Oblivion remaster is that players are greater than on-board to dive again into the historic annals of Elder Scrolls of years-gone-by. That’s not to say any remaster is a slam dunk – this explicit one is a transparent product of cautious consideration and expert growth, and a lesser recreation might have garnered a really totally different response, ala Rockstar’s personal GTA Definitive Editions – however what higher manner for the previous king of the trendy RPG to get again on monitor than to breathe new life into some previous classics?
Sab Astley is a contract author who has written for IGN, Polygon, TotalFilm, Rolling Stone, Radio Instances, and Metro UK.