My Friend Would Have Loved The Oblivion Remake
Memorial Cave, found southeast of the Imperial City.
Bethesda decided to treat everyone with a surprise remaster of the 2005 classic The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion earlier this year. In my book Xbox is currently 2 for 2 with shadow dropped remasters that are absolute bangers this year, the first of which being Ninja Gaiden II Black. With the game being available through Xbox Game Pass, it allowed me to easily hop in and see what the hype is all about.
You see, I never played Oblivion back when it was first released, hell I didn’t even have a 7th gen console until the early-2010s. I still knew of Oblivion and have seen it mostly because I, like many others, fell in love with its successor: Skyrim. Not many in my circle were as fond of the game, though. I didn’t find anyone who enjoyed it as much as Cam, who played it more than I possibly could in this lifetime. As I play the Oblivion remaster now, I just can’t help but think how much she would love this game if she was here to play it.
There is no easier way to word it, but we lost Cam earlier this year. Coming to terms with that fact hasn’t been easy, and it weighs on me every day with some being easier than others. Whenever Cam was in love with something she sunk every fiber of her being into it. When the topic of video games came about and Skyrim was mentioned, I felt the air stop circulating.
She proceeded to tell me that she played it to death, completing every storyline and witnessing all possible outcomes. I always loved joining the Dark Brotherhood because the edgy kid in me was in love with the armor set. Cam, however, sucked every inch of lore out of this world that she knew things I never did and took in more of the game than I knew was possible. The closer the two of us got, her deep appreciation only made more sense.
Not that the two are connected but she was also a big fan of Lord of the Rings, so being able to play around in a fantasy world akin to that was simply a dream come true for her. This was before Shadow of Mordor released, and even so she complained about the lore being inaccurate like most die-hard fans. Just having the power to shape the world based on your decisions and allegiances I know made the author inside of Cam simply ecstatic.
Being able to get lost in another Elder Scrolls game would have made her scream. She may have festered initially that it’s not Skyrim or that it’s not Elder Scrolls VI, but I know for a damn fact that she would’ve played the hell out of this game. Why? Oblivion Remastered is just a damn good time.
Cam and I both played Skyrim for the first time on the Xbox 360. I have always enjoyed its art style, and the characters have a certain charm to them that makes them so memorable. I still remember all the times I got Lydia getting flung by giants when I started, and it was never not funny. However, even with Oblivion being a different game on a different engine with different hardware, it is still a remaster of a game from 2005.
For as much as the remaster improved, Bethesda themselves do not want this referred to as a remake as they wanted to capture the classic feeling of the game from before. I felt this firsthand because realistically speaking Oblivion Remastered plays more or less like an improved version of Skyrim.
If it wasn’t apparent, I am not the Elder Scrolls connoisseur for that title belongs to Cam. Regardless, as I play this remaster of a game I’ve never played before it is very easy to get comfortable playing Oblivion. The character customization allows for some wacky appearances but also there are a lot of different play styles to mess around with too. Hell the game even lets you create a custom class by letting you mix and match the other styles. I made it a point to have a giant ass sword with my class focusing on strength and talkability so I ended up calling my class “The Power”, and I know Cam immediately would laugh and tell me how stupid that is.
From the minute I stepped out of the sewers I was happy to see another world to get lost in, and Oblivion certainly looks the part of a 2025 release. Admittedly, I’m scared of every developer using Unreal Engine 5, but I also get it. It’s appealing, the way the colors blend into one another and just how full all the environments feel makes the world feel vast. It’s as if I decided to run through tall grass in shorts. I can almost feel the pricks of the grass blades scraping my legs. That’s how I felt frolicking through the forests anyway.
However, that does come at a cost. I played on the Xbox Series X and even then the frame rate does not stay at a full 60 during the performance mode. It’s not horrifically unplayable by any means, but when it hangs it hangs pretty damn hard. Now it really doesn’t bug me too much, and I know Cam wouldn’t give a single ounce of crap about frame rates and all that stuff. “Does it work?” That’s all she would need to know before saying bye and we’d never see her until she beat it. That’s how she was with Hogwarts Legacy, and I know she would do the same thing here.
That’s the beauty of this remaster, hell, remasters in general. Even if a remaster or port sucks (luckily this one doesn’t), it keeps the franchise and memories alive. If the current new iteration happens to be lackluster and the previous iteration is still available it encourages those inclined enough to go back and experience the source.
Not necessarily the same thing but if it wasn’t for Fortnite adding Cowboy Bebop, my sister never would’ve started watching it. Cam would slap me using Fortnite as an example but she would also know that I’m right even if she wouldn’t admit it aloud.
So many people play Skyrim because Todd keeps releasing Skyrim. You can’t blame him though. If people keep buying, why wouldn’t you keep selling? It keeps the flame of passion alive, and now they’ve poured a whole canister of gas with this Oblivion drop. The amount of happiness I’ve seen based on the care that was put into creating this thing just warms my heart, honestly.
I’d be lying if I said I was able to play this game for long periods of time, but truthfully it’s difficult to. Not because of the game itself, obviously. It just reminds me a lot of Cam. I know that’s as much of a standard response as it is a bad excuse. It’s been harder than I could ever possibly describe to get my thoughts structured writing this. It’s also more or less why I haven’t dove into the mechanisms of the game because honestly that’s not at the forefront of my mind.
In my time of grieving there’s something I heard from a YouTube video, specifically Raycevick’s analysis on Rollerdrome (free plug I just love his content). Ultimately there’s a really good way to get out of any sort of creative rut that isn’t necessarily talked about much as you wouldn’t necessarily think of this even though it seems counterintuitive. In short: consume more.
It’s a bit of a joke now about how all we do is buy and consume, but from a creative standpoint that’s what I would consider one of the best ways to break the mold, seriously. We are all constantly consuming information no matter how it’s presented, somehow some way your brain is taking it all in even if only half of your effort seems to be placed in doing so. We remember more than we realize. Opening yourself up to experience something brand new can allow you to see things from a perspective that you may not have considered before, whether that’s in adoration or disgust.
Even if something is disappointing, there’s a reason why but there’s also room to improve. That’s how Cam took everything, even if something didn’t necessarily appeal to her she still at the very least would give it a shot especially if I meant having a chance to connect with those around her. Or it would drive them away when she suggested watching Velocipastor. However there’s always something to gain from any experience.
If you’re a writer and you read a story that sucked, instead of being pissed that it wasn’t better, why not just write a better ending yourself just for the hell of it? The takeaway here is to take the energy you have, positive or negative, and funnel it into something that you can be proud of and want to share with the world. That’s more or less why I became a journalist to begin with.
If there’s anything I learned from the duration of this year so far it’s that nothing is guaranteed and we have to learn to appreciate things while we have them. I don’t mean to force positivity, either. What I ultimately am saying is that things are hard and no matter what the future is always approaching us. Playing Oblivion Remastered allowed me to appreciate the beauty in its simplicity.
No matter what horrible things we may face in the world or in our personal lives, we can find something to latch onto that gives us hope. If not hope then at the very least a moment of peace. Find pieces of art in any form that just allow you to feel something. For all of life’s faults, there will always be something that we can all find and appreciate to make us forget about it all even for a second. If there’s anything Cam would have wanted me or anyone to do, she never would’ve wanted the fun to stop. I suppose I should keep going then, but so should you. We got this.
Thanks, Cam.
