When Bethesda finally revealed Oblivion, which was remastered earlier this week, I could hardly believe my eyes. For some reason, the 2006 trip to Tamriel is known for its strange, potato-faced characters and low-resolution lush grassland fillings, and is now the best elder scroll game ever made. The long history of HD overhauling has conditioned us to expect overwhelming results from the remaster. The legendary version of Mass Effect and Dark Souls are hardly distinct from the parents of, say, Xbox 360. Not only that, the game is enhanced by upgrades of combat, RPG systems and many other details. All of that was thought to have been the master of Bethesda and the project’s developer, who was the creator, in the wrong title. Certainly this is forgetful RemakeHas it been remastered?
I can see that I was not alone in that idea. Many fans have declared it a remake, and even Bruce Nesmith, senior game designer for the original Oblivion project, said, “I don’t know if (word) remaster actually does justice.” But I initially doubted the claims of Bethesda and Master’s remaster, but after playing for a few hours it’s actually pretty clear.
There are many reasons why Oblivion looks like a remake. They are easy to summarize. Virtuos did an enormous amount of work, “all assets were redesigned from scratch.” As for what you can see physically on the screen, it’s all brand new. Every tree, every sword, every crumbling castle. This means that forgetting endures modern graphical expectations. Not only is it beautifully textured, it also has gorgeous lighting and an all-new physical system that ensures that every arrow and weapon strike will have a realistic impact on the world. And while everyone you meet in the game is recognized as the same people you crossed the pass in 2006, all NPC models are a whole new creation. It’s a very impressive overhaul that rejects the idea of making something “seems to remember” and instead aims to be great by the 2025 standard. This is the best Bethesda game studio RPG ever saw, and if you’ve seen it before the remaster rumors began, you probably believed it was Elder’s Scroll 6.
However, it’s not just the visuals. The battle has been overhauled so shaking a Longsword no longer feels like fencing with balloons. Third-person cameras have actually become functional with the addition of a net. From Quest Journals to dialogues to rock picking and persuasion mini-games, everything in the menu is all updated with the interface. The original, terrifying leveling system has been replaced by a much more logical hybrid of Forgetting and Skyrim’s approach. and Finally You can sprint. There are so many visual and gameplay upgrades, so certainly we’ve been remade solidly?
The big issue here is semantics, not technology, game changes, or one of the scope of the project. There are no industry-defined parameters for remakes or remasters, and publishers recklessly cast the conditions. The remaster of Rockstar’s “Definitive Edition” by Grand Theft Auto Trilogy is a undoubtedly blocky PlayStation 2 era game with rising textures and modern lighting effects. However, the Crash Bandicoot N. Thane trilogy brands the remaster, sports an entirely new graphical asset, and looks like a modern game. Things get even more muddy when we remake: The shadows of Bluepoint’s Colossus and Demon’s Souls both reconstruct their respective games from scratch, but are faithful, 1:1 recreation of the original experience. Resident Evil 2, on the other hand, sticks more or less to the original blueprint in terms of structure, but completely redesigns how it interacts with the survival horror icon. And then there’s the remake and playback of Final Fantasy 7. This fundamentally overhauls the original game’s design, script, and even story beats. All of these examples are considered remakes, but there is little shared philosophy between them.
At one point, the general consensus is that if the game was rebuilt from scratch with a modern engine, it was considered a remake. Meanwhile, the remaster has performed a more limited upgrade within the game’s original technology. However, such definitions are clearly outdated. Today, the remaster is a graphical overhaul that holds a graphical overhaul (several quality gameplay upgrades) that preserves the original game’s design, and the remake redesigns the game from scratch. Such a definition is the “downgrade” to the soul of the Demon and upcoming Metal Gear Solid: Remaster to Delta, and confirms that the remake terminology only applies to games that feel like they are truly feeling a new idea.
Accepting these proposed definitions, is this new version of Oblivion a remake or a remaster? Forgetfulness has absolutely the right name, so that anyone who has played for just an hour can clearly see it. Yes, these new assets and unrealistic Engine 5 Raytracing effects make them look brand new, but beneath their shining skin is a collection of 20-year-old bones, organs and muscles. As the studio explained, “We looked at every part and upgraded carefully. But most of all, we didn’t want to change the core. It’s still a game from an earlier era and it should feel like it.”
The characteristics of the previous era are everywhere. The one that hides behind almost every door is on the loading screen. It’s in the inexplicable persuasive mini-game that despite the interface upgrades, it feels barely reasonable and completely disconnected by the conversation. It is in the design of the city, with a simple design of the theatre stage set, rather than the intricate, knotty arrangement of the real population center. It’s in the NPCS, wandering like a nasty automata, talking to all the bounty of AI trained in the “How to Become a Society” manual. It’s in battle. It finds a major upgrade still detached and cumbersome. And it’s still on a long list of bugs and glitches that are still lingering, preserved in honor in the name of maintaining the quirky charm of the original.
Just a few months ago we were treated to an Obsidian avowed. The combat of that movement is essentially space age compared to the remastered of Forget, but its approach to approach is very much felt by the gentle hills and rough caves of Kilodiil, which are relics from last year. Such modern systems can help you remaster forgetting into context. That’s not to say that this revised classic doesn’t offer anything in 2025. The magic of that world is still bright and bright, and its Rohan-like open field is filled with dozens of mysteries and strangeness. Much of that ambition remains unharmed after two generations, including wages between NPC clans and a narratively satisfying exploration structure that maintains head and shoulders above many of Skyrim’s “visiting Draugr-filled dungeons” missions. Many of the old-school ideas around player freedom feel refreshing in the 2010s era of rejecting the hand-held nature of games. However, the granular details of forgetting are clearly gray and long in the teeth. There is no finesse in that dialogue. There is also no elegance in the way systems interconnect. And whether it’s a cave, a castle, or a cursed land of oblivion itself, the design of the level feels positively ancient. The job of remakes is to update all these ideas, but this project is all about relating to the old ones. Something like that: Forgetting Remaster.
Video games have historically fallen on terminology from other media. In the world of cinema, the remake is a new production with fresh cast, crew, scripts and sets. The remaster is an existing film that has been enhanced as much as possible to meet the latest image quality standards. But the old movies are still old movies. The 4K restorations of the Jaw and Godfather look incredible, but they are clearly 1970s products. You can see that direction, delivery and effects work. This is in the texture of the film grains. Forgetfulness is similar to the repair of a Blu-ray in a classic movie. Push as much visual quality as possible. This means recreating the “appearance” of the project with a new engine thanks to the more adaptable medium of video games. But under that shell, oblivion is definitely a product of the 2000s. Virtuos executive producer Alex Murphy had the perfect similarity between the release streams.
The remastered Oblivion is exactly what it says, and it should not be seen as a downplay of its achievements. Instead of claiming it is a remake, it should actually be used as a high quality bar to judge a remaster from other Titan-scale AAA companies. This is what Mass Effect Legendary Edition should have been, not a cleaned-up re-release. This is Grand Theft Auto. The trilogy should have been, not an incredibly cynical, moving cash grab. Because there is nothing ironic about forgetting that it has been remastered. It looks like a remake created by passionate hands, but plays like a remaster saved by your beloved fans.
Matt Purslow is Passthecontroller’s senior feature editor.
