Oblivion
Bethesda
At long last, Bethesda and Microsoft finally decided that they would debut the most-leaked project in the industry and do so without moving the release window that everyone was reporting. And yes, it’s out now.
After a stream showing off the remade Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster (not classified as a remake, apparently) with its absurdly amazing new graphics and features, it was announced that the game was launching today, as previously predicted, as a “shadow drop,” the likes of which Microsoft has done before with games like Hi-Fi Rush (one of the great tragedies of our time, given what happened to its studio).
The Oblivion remaster was made by Virtuous, not Bethesda pulling off devs to work on it as opposed to the eternally gestating Elder Scrolls VI, where as you may expect, there was not any news about that project in this stream today other than a quick mention. Rather, the focus is on this remaster which is far above and beyond what we’ve seen for practically any other game, at least nothing this old. It’s genuinely amazing to behold, and this should grab a large numbers of new and old players alike. 600,000 people were watching this reveal stream alone.
Oblivion
Bethesda
Despite being a hushed release until today (minus the leaks), the Oblivion remaster, if it’s as good as it looks, may prove to be one of the bigger games of the year, given the impact the original had and how popular the franchise remains (as a decade of Skyrim demonstrates). Sure, even if some aspects are dated despite being a remake, this seems like it will have a wide audience. And a wide audience that includes, you guessed it, Xbox Game Pass players able to get the Oblivion remake as a part of their subscription.
It looks solid, better than almost any remake I’ve seen in a long while. Getting your hands on it is another thing, and it will cost you a good chunk of hard drive space (120 GB) and $50 if you’re not on Game Pass (it is also on PS5 and Steam). But at the time of this writing, I already paid for it because well, of course I was going to. I will report back with my own thoughts on the remake once I get a little ways into it.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
