Artist Cormac Ganshirt (cormeals) reimagines the Imperial City from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on a realistic scale, expanding this imperial capital into an archipelago metropolis targeting a population of approximately 1.5 million. This is a fan art creation and reinterpretation of the lore, not an official remake design announced by Bethesda.
Previously, cormeals reconstructed Whiterun, Solitude, and Markarth from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. He believes that due to hardware limitations and production trade-offs in 2006, the game's Imperial City ultimately became a circular medieval city on an island, differing from the older lore's more prosperous, subtropical archipelago metropolis. However, he also acknowledges the effectiveness of the original design and calls The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion a classic title in which he invested considerable time.
The new artwork does not strictly follow earlier textual lore but retains the Imperial City's recognizable circular layout and mild European climate, using these as a basis for extrapolating a realistic scale. The artist drew inspiration from Baghdad's Round City, built starting in 762 AD, and used medieval Constantinople as the primary prototype. Considering that historical cities rarely exceeded one million inhabitants, he set the Imperial City's population at around 1.5 million, with some residents living in suburbs outside the city walls.
The redesign also adjusts the proportions between Lake Rumare, the city, and the mainland, designates the southern area as another island, and adds ports, a university, settlements outside the city, and new districts with a Venetian flair.
During production, cormeals used Google Earth imagery, architectural models, and textures from Mediterranean and North African cities to maintain a sense of scale, enhancing spatial depth with cloud shadows. The entire piece showcases the potential scale and structure of the Imperial City after expanding upon its worldview, historical population, and real-world urban planning.