Oblivion Remastered’s Faithfulness Could Be Slamming The Brakes On The Hype
Bethesda made the biggest release of the year so far when they shadow dropped The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. The remaster was a huge and well-received shock to many fans. The game has also been called a “true remaster,” meaning that the developers wanted to give players the same experience they had back in 2006 but with a complete graphical overhaul. Oblivion was, of course, never a perfect game, and today we’re going to look at some of the things they could have changed in the remaster, but didn’t.
Bethesda Made Minimal Changes to Player Experience
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remaster has immediately shot up the sales charts. The game has reached a max of 4 million players on Steam and sold over 3 million copies in its first day. The reviews of this remaster have been outstanding. Players have been raving and screaming over returning to Cyrodiil and how true to the original the game feels, moment to moment. There have been some specific changes to character building to make the experience richer.
The way that major and minor skills facilitate growth in attributes has been slightly amended to take some of the grind out of the game in the Oblivion remaster. They have also added a new origin attribute in Oblivion Remastered that players choose when they begin their character, giving them different bonuses based on their heritage or background.
Glitches From the Original Still Present As Exploits
For its time back in 2006, Oblivion was a massive game. Its lack of motion capture animation and limited voice acting lines, as well as other issues, were understood to be a product of a game that made the most out of the budget that it had, and at the end of the day, the final product was still excellent. In a game this massive, no matter what era it’s been made in throughout gaming history, there are always bugs and glitches, and exploits.
The Elder Scrolls players have traditionally been able to find means to duplicate items and exploit their stats to unimaginable levels. These are the kinds of things that I think many players would have welcomed a patch for; however, many of them were not. Famous glitches like the level-up glitch, the gold glitch, and the item duplication glitch are all still in the game. Players are split on this inclusion, especially because of how much more immersive and intense this remaster is. Some players feel like the existence of these bugs has the potential to ruin the role-playing element of the game.
It is also true that some of these glitches can be discovered accidentally and that new exploits are being found in the remaster as well. Patching out these known bugs and glitches, many players feel, would have provided a safety net from accidentally encountering them. Hopefully, this doesn’t cause players to massively exit the game after a week or so. Maybe Bethesda will decide to patch the game in the future, but for now, the game exists as it is. A sometimes painfully accurate remaster.
