To be honest, as a game editor, I have some complaints about the recent Xbox Game Studios team—they always launch a "blitzkrieg" on your gaming plans at unexpected moments. The "Ninja Gaiden" announcement in late January was a prime example: after more than a decade of silence, the series suddenly released a trailer for a new title and launched the remake of Ninja Gaiden II Black on all major platforms on the same day. This left our editorial team scrambling, happily enjoying the game while frantically adjusting our work schedules.
Perhaps finding it amusing to tease players and editors alike, these folks teamed up with our dearest Uncle Todd three months later to pull another big stunt. On April 21, 2025, the long-silent Bethesda suddenly released a teaser image—a large Roman numeral IV. Combined with the constant rumors from various "insiders," I instantly got goosebumps all over my legs. It seemed the remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was really coming.
Sure enough, on April 22, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered was officially announced and immediately released on all major platforms. Before the presentation even ended, the Steam store page was unlocked. This game, released nearly twenty years ago, has returned to us dressed in next-gen attire.
In fact, for the newer generation of players, "The Elder Scrolls" is quite a distant series. Even the most recent entry, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, dates back to 2011. And in 2006, when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was at its peak, the domestic PC gaming scene in China was still largely undeveloped... To be frank, most people, including myself, don't really have a concept of the "Old Scrolls" prior to Skyrim.
Therefore, I couldn't help but wonder—in today's gaming industry, which has undergone several generations of innovation, is there really anyone still playing this work from the distant past?
The answer is, plenty of people are playing it.
Despite the "debuffs" of a weekday release, availability on all console platforms, and day-one entry into XGP, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered dominated the single-player charts on Steam with 170,000 concurrent players. This number wasn't just a fleeting spike of interest; in the following days, the concurrent player count didn't drop but instead hit new daily highs, reaching an astonishing peak of 210,000 during the first weekend after launch.
According to official data released by Bethesda, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered surpassed 4 million players in just three days. Its viewership on Twitch tied with League of Legends for the top spot in the gaming category. If it weren't for the mysterious lab reasons preventing "Elder Scrolls" games from being streamed on domestic Chinese platforms, it likely would have replicated this success in mainland China as well.
So, why did this vintage title achieve such results with a surprise launch model and almost no prior marketing?
The answer is actually quite simple—
First, and the fundamental reason for this remaster's existence, is the inherent excellence of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. At the time, this game was the undisputed "GOTY" (Game of the Year) and even the uncontested "GOAT" (Greatest of All Time) for open-world games. In an era before open worlds were defined by "formulaic content mills" and linear level-based games still dominated, the shock and awe delivered by Oblivion to players was indescribable.
Players were no longer "puppets" bound to a fixed map by main quests. Instead, they could freely roleplay as anyone they wanted, go anywhere they desired, and explore any mountain, town, dungeon, or scenic view. Keep in mind, Oblivion's map size is 41 square kilometers, a figure larger than its predecessor, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and even exceeding its sequel, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
At the same time, dynamic NPC schedules were introduced in this installment. Looking back now, the "intelligent NPCs" that Brother Todd hyped up so much would often do stupid things like bathing in lava, and their so-called "daily routines" were somewhat rudimentary. But for players at the time, NPCs who worked during the day and rested at night, guards who chased you down for crimes like theft or murder... without exception, these were all fresh and exciting designs.
Coupled with Oblivion's main storyline and quest designs, which remain timeless even today, and Bethesda's signature RPG mechanic of "kill them and loot Everythinggj," the original Oblivion remains a masterpiece worth experiencing specifically, even in the present day.
However, while the original Oblivion was indeed groundbreaking at the time, limited by its era, it inevitably carried many flaws that are completely incomprehensible by today's standards—
For example, logically, "the more you level up, the stronger you get, and the easier battles become" should be the underlying logic of RPGs. But The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion went in the exact opposite direction.
In this game, enemy strength scales with your level, and your level is determined solely by the "major skills" of your chosen class. The more you train your major skills, the faster enemy strength increases linearly. Training "minor skills," on the other hand, provides benefits without increasing enemy levels. In other words, if you want to play a mage, you should choose a warrior class and spam spells; if you want to play melee, you should choose a frail mage class to swing your staff freely. Otherwise, the level increases from repeatedly using "major skills" will quickly become the final straw that breaks the game's difficulty curve.
Furthermore, as a game from nearly two decades ago, the original Oblivion performed disastrously in areas it was never strong in, such as melee combat feel and animated presentations, which were also heavily criticized in subsequent titles like Skyrim. The clunky melee attacks of the time now look like simple "button-press-to-play-animation" sequences with virtually zero impact feedback, and the outdated scripted events are truly cringe-worthy.
These outdated designs, constrained by the design philosophies of the past, often deterred millennials who came to experience the original Oblivion, as they struggled to accept these pain points. To truly bring new-era players into this thorny classic from the past, bold changes to the original framework were necessary. However, can this re-release, labeled "Remaster" in its subtitle, really fill the huge holes Bethesda dug back then?
The answer is obvious—if they hadn't succeeded, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered wouldn't have achieved such massive success. As mentioned earlier, the excellence of the original is only one reason for the remake's success. What truly won over modern players is the "sincerity" demonstrated in this remaster.
Keep in mind, this remaster is labeled as a "Remaster," a term in the industry that basically only implies a graphical upgrade. A typical example is Dark Souls Remastered, which only upgraded the visuals while fully retaining the original's flaws, such as four-directional rolling.
Even with a higher-spec label than "Remaster," the final product isn't necessarily sincere. Warcraft III: Reforged is a case in point. Due to its half-finished single-player campaign upgrades, insane localization errors, and many other rushed, insincere design choices, it received a low user score of 1.7 on Metacritic.
However, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered clearly distinguishes itself from those "half-hearted" remasters. Although technically still a "Remaster," its production quality is anything but sloppy.
The visual effects powered by Unreal Engine 5 not only bring the game's audio-visual presentation up to par with current-generation console standards, showcasing top-tier lighting, water effects, modeling, and textures, but also fully retain the signature features of the previous Creation Engine—namely, object interaction. Theoretically, operations like "stacking ten thousand potatoes on a hillside" from the original can be perfectly replicated in the remaster, and Bethesda's signature environmental storytelling elements are preserved to the maximum extent.
In terms of presentation, the remake's cutscenes, animations, and other elements have been completely redone. The old emperor at the beginning no longer dies from a random stab like "some guy on the street," but instead has a full animation sequence depicting the act of "regicide." To put it bluntly, it's just an added throat-slitting motion, but the difference in expressiveness is night and day.
On a side note, the "Flame Atronach" creature in the remaster has received considerable "affection" from the player community due to its excessively graceful figure. I'm sure we'll soon see images of that fiery silhouette on various mysterious websites... Ahem, I'm getting off track.
Building on this, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered also modernized the game's systems. The original's counter-intuitive leveling system is gone, replaced by a system similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. "Major skills" associated with classes now only affect the speed of skill progression, while character level is influenced by the combined levels of all skills.
The overly steep difficulty curve of the original has also been smoothed out. Players no longer need to intentionally suppress their level or even choose the wrong class just to have a normal gaming experience.
Meanwhile, optimizations to melee combat feel, the action system, third-person perspective, and many other details have given new life to the melee classes, which were bottom-tier in the original The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Keep in mind, the original Oblivion didn't even have a "sprint" function; melee characters had to hold up a shield and take hits while slowly walking forward to close the distance. By the time they got close, mages would have already blasted the enemy to pieces.
Although limited by the original's age, the weapon handling still lags slightly behind mainstream action games today. But to put it positively—this is indeed the peak of combat feel in the decades-long history of the "Elder Scrolls" series.
Additionally, the game features numerous improvements in UI, UX, weight systems, and more. Due to space limitations, we can't list them all, but collectively, these changes transform this ancient classic, heavy with the "smell of old age," from an untouchable pedestal into a title accessible to most players. Undoubtedly, this is the best choice for new players to begin exploring "The Elder Scrolls" series and for veterans to reminisce about the good old days.
Honestly, in the "post-Starfield era," it's a rare and pleasant surprise for Bethesda to deliver such a sincere remake. It means that despite the disastrous launch of Fallout 76 and the underwhelming Starfield, this veteran RPG developer hasn't stopped moving forward.
How's my little Todd creation?
This has reignited my anticipation for "Elder Scrolls VI," which might still be in the "New Folder" stage. The young talents of Jiangdong are plentiful; Little Todd, lead us on another charge—as that saying goes...
Love Todd, trust Todd, wait for Todd.