tbf the exit to the sewers looked nothing like this back in the day
TehOwn
It was alright. I’d already played Morrowind.
newbizhigh
Back in the day, it was an okay game at best. Morrowind was a far superior game till Skyrim came out. Oblivion is only good now because of the remastered graphics. Still am overall boring game, but fun none the less till ES6 in 2035.
SpyderDust
Every time I played Oblivion, the first thing I say is
“I NEED MORE POLYGONS!”
As though I were demanding more pictures of spiderman.
ALSO the mechanics in the original are… let’s just say bad. Yea, we’ll go with bad.
God forbid you try archery.
The remaster is not just beautiful, and I mean *absolutely fucking stunning*, but they fixed a TON of issues with the mechanics.
Statement-Acceptable
I was a GM for WoW EU servers when it first released. Good times
LumensAquilae
I remember the first time I shot a fireball down a brick hallway towards a skeleton. I saw the dynamic light of the fireball reacting with the normal maps on the brick, then the fireball hit the skeleton and it exploded into scattered bones which flew away and bounced off the the walls. I was blown away.
SpaceGoonie
The remaster is fantastic, and I like all 3 games, but for me it’s very easily in this order.
Morrowind > Skyrim > Oblivion
DesignatedDiverr
Was so excited for Oblivion after playing a lot of Morrowind. I think I only ever played an hour of Oblivion. I immediately disliked it. I would say you didn’t actually miss much. I wish they remastered Morrowind instead but somehow Oblivion needed it more than Morrowind does so I get it
AndTheElbowGrease
I played Oblivion day 1 on release back in the day and it was great. Some things were miles ahead of Morrowind – the graphics were incredible and the sound great until you got tired of hearing the same 5 voice actors.
The feeling coming out of the sewers for the first time was epic, like the moment in Fallout 3 when you come out of the vault for the first time . I had no idea what I was about to see and do.
The biggest problem in Oblivion was the level scaling mechanic. Before I ever did the main quest, I spent a bunch of time doing all of the quests in the Imperial City, stealing from people, and making potions. So, I was leveling shit that did not help me in combat. When I finally left the Imperial City, bandits were running around in glass armor and the rats that you could one-shot were now epic battles.
The second biggest problem was the level design. Most of the random caves and dungeons were soulless. Most had no story behind them and were just filled with seemingly random monsters and loot and you would see the same things over and over. Even the Oblivion Gates you eventually would just cruise through without paying attention.
Valuable-Flounder692
It was actually not that great, honestly.
marwynn
It crashed a lot and bugged out. I played it in between drug pulls of WoW.
Stasiss_462
I was a little let down after playing so many hours of Morrowind. But it was still a lot of fun.
CollectiblesNStuff
The scope of the game was incredible. Everything else… well uh… it all just worked.
Ajsapp44
Dude… you just had to be there
I_Am_Sharticus_
Oblivion did a handful of cool things while a truckload of interactions exploded, it was wild and you had to be there to appreciate it.
Seto_Lain
Yeah the remake is so goooo- Fatal error
Themuzucujata1432
Oh it was beautiful
osunightfall
Taken as a whole, Oblivion was astonishing in so many ways. It was like a more polished version of Morrowind that had learned what worked and what didn’t.
TheUnrealCanadian
I remember getting it for Christmas with a 360 from my uncle. Playing the remaster now is just like how I felt way back in 2006.
Cruzifixio
Oblivion was one of the first games that solidified the graphical and technical jump from the PS2 era.
It was incredible to see all the items on a table fly all over the place after being hit by a fireball.
It was incredible to kill a marauder and see their sowrd fall down a hill after killing him.
It was incredible how the AI caused some funny stuff, like npcs eating a poisoned apple from a table and then dying, because all npcs need to eat.
Ob also was one of the first game to heavily use parallax textures, wich made flat surfaces have the illusion of volume, bricks on a walla would pop up and respond to light sources. Not even Skyrim used this feature as prominently years later.
JiffTheJester
It was amazing, but this remake is fucking amazing too
nmck160
I remember nearly frothing installing Bootcamp on my Dad’s brand new MacBook in the spring of 2008 just so I could play Oblivion on it, counting down the discrete ticks of the progress bar, because my Mom somehow bought a PC copy for me the year prior, but didn’t want to upgrade our family computer to play it because “me and my brother spent too much time playing video games”, which was absolutely correct, and still is.
This is how I remember the sewer gate _looking_ when I first stepped out on my very first playthrough. An absolutely incredible memory.
So many fond memories of that game from my adolescence, but footage/coverage of the remaster’s performance issues have left me feeling quite sour, so I’ll buy it in 4 months time when there’s a discount and (hopefully) performance issues are addressed.
Historical_Tennis494
I remember being in such awe at pulling the hanging chains around the cell in the very beginning.
d4nowar
I was playing a ton of Guild Wars and WoW when it came out, skipped it entirely.
Fadamaka
This was my first TES game. I ignored the main quest, broke into every house, finished thieves guild and dark brotherhood. It was great.
PartyLikeaPirate
I remember morrowind & oblivion but was young so all I remember was murdering all the shop keeps – I didn’t do anything else or remember anything else I did
silenkurii
Yeah these experiences are very far and few in between now. New and exciting gaming experiences still exist but they don’t hit as hard as they used to and they don’t last as long either. Just a by product of times and perceptions moving forward.
TheMurmuring
Characters were terrible for the time. Dungeon design was a joke; every dungeon looked the same, had all the same parts, they were just glued together in different ways.
Swampkandy
The sheer hype and excitement of this game was insane. This was before you could just download the game so had to actually buy a hard copy, problem was, everyone else wanted to do the same.
I recall at least here in the UK lots of pre orders failing to ship on release day due to the sheer amount of orders. Mine was delayed so had it ordered in 2 other locations to try and get it sooner and then return the extra copies.
I have never done that for any other game, but my god, it was glorious. Hours spent just in awe of the graphics, taking hundreds of screenshots to share with friends.
It’s funny how your mind plays tricks on you as when I see the remaster screenshots, I think that is how it looked back in the day.
snakebite262
I was ruined by Skyrim before I played Oblivion. As such, I didn’t get to far into it. The remake on the other hand has reignited my fervor.
aft3rthought
On launch honestly it was a bit… whelming. The terrain and characters didn’t look that pretty even for the time, they changed from text heavy in Morrowind to stiff voice acting, the AI was heavily overhyped and was a letdown (despite actually being a pretty big step up – they really overpromised), and eventually the level scaling really emerged as a big issue, despite it being mostly fixable by changing 6 numbers in the editor toolkit. Like all BSG games though, it has some wonderful aspects and after some patches, expansions and mods it was pretty amazing.
MartianMule
Imo, this one is much better. Not even because of the updated visuals. I hated the original leveling system, remastered did a much better job with it.
Ignore_User_Name
This and Persona were responsible for tv burn in from status bars.. guess played them a bit too much ( on console, hence TV)
schwiftybass
Oh my god I haven’t played since the original release & this image just sent me straight through a nostalgia wormhole.
What a magical experience it was to play this as a kid, thanks for the reminder 🙂
Aschrod1
Man, it was pure magic.
mic_n
You should have seen Morrowind then.
*That* is the remake we need.
trizthefren
I played Morrowind for thousands of hours before Oblivion was released and I was hyped at first but quickly became underwhelmed with the game. The copy/paste ruins and lore felt lacking compared to MW. I recently replayed Oblivion and like it more now than i did then
kain459
I’ve closed so many Oblivion Gates I am one.
authorizedscott
I just walked through that gate for the first time ever. Never played the original but after seeing how much people are enjoying this remakester, giving it a go. So far so good!
NfamousShirley
Being able to walk anywhere freely was the coolest experience ever. Picking a direction and just going. Climbing any mountain. Such a surreal experience.
conn_r2112
Yeah it was pretty sick… learning that you could go into literally every building and just steal everyone’s shit all over town really awakened something in me.
Baalwulf06
Oblivion was good at a few things. Streamlined combat-good, spell casting – good, exploration -good, scale-good, visuals-good.
Oblivion was ass at many things too.
Caves were all l the same, skeletons or goblins. Ayleid ruins largely the same. Weapons were dumed down from Morrowind, armor stripped down to light or heavy dumping entirely the medium armor class. Horses had no purpose what so ever. Lots of the NPC faces were good awful smears of color that zoomed WAY too close when conversation initiated. The cities were scaled pretty badly in terms of size, every city felt like everyone’s job was city guard and a handful of named NPCs that wandered around, however I understand that was likely limitations of the engine.
I’m not trying to shit on the remaster but for as great as oblivion was, tis but a gold plated skeleton of the glory of Morrowind.
Bethesda would strike a fountain of wealth if they nutted up and gave the world the remaster Morrowind deserves. However given how old it’s software is, it needs to be a remake for sure.
_Fun_Employed_
As a fan of Morrowind, Oblivion felt like a downgrade in every way except graphics and being voiced.
callahan09
I wasn’t sure if it was just nostalgia making me think so highly of it compared to Skyrim but after playing it so much since the remaster came out I really don’t think so. I just love the writing, characters, side quest design etc. Glarthir for example is such an interesting character and quest. The world just feels so lived in and real, with complex and unique characters in every town!
ebagjones
Yeah, up until this I’d never really been thrown out into a world with a ‘figure it out or just find your own fun’ mindset from the developers.
Terrible_Lie_02
Meshuggah!
RyunWould
Exiting the sewers was a one of a kind feeling. You knew you had a whole world at your finger tips and nothing but time to play (I was 18 at the time)
ThatITGuyFromWork
I was there…and it was beautiful.
GrimJesta
I remember the first time I saw a thunder and lightning storm in Oblivion when it first came out. I had never seen anything so real in a game before. I just sat there in awe.
49 Comments
tbf the exit to the sewers looked nothing like this back in the day
It was alright. I’d already played Morrowind.
Back in the day, it was an okay game at best. Morrowind was a far superior game till Skyrim came out. Oblivion is only good now because of the remastered graphics. Still am overall boring game, but fun none the less till ES6 in 2035.
Every time I played Oblivion, the first thing I say is
“I NEED MORE POLYGONS!”
As though I were demanding more pictures of spiderman.
ALSO the mechanics in the original are… let’s just say bad. Yea, we’ll go with bad.
God forbid you try archery.
The remaster is not just beautiful, and I mean *absolutely fucking stunning*, but they fixed a TON of issues with the mechanics.
I was a GM for WoW EU servers when it first released. Good times
I remember the first time I shot a fireball down a brick hallway towards a skeleton. I saw the dynamic light of the fireball reacting with the normal maps on the brick, then the fireball hit the skeleton and it exploded into scattered bones which flew away and bounced off the the walls. I was blown away.
The remaster is fantastic, and I like all 3 games, but for me it’s very easily in this order.
Morrowind > Skyrim > Oblivion
Was so excited for Oblivion after playing a lot of Morrowind. I think I only ever played an hour of Oblivion. I immediately disliked it. I would say you didn’t actually miss much. I wish they remastered Morrowind instead but somehow Oblivion needed it more than Morrowind does so I get it
I played Oblivion day 1 on release back in the day and it was great. Some things were miles ahead of Morrowind – the graphics were incredible and the sound great until you got tired of hearing the same 5 voice actors.
The feeling coming out of the sewers for the first time was epic, like the moment in Fallout 3 when you come out of the vault for the first time . I had no idea what I was about to see and do.
The biggest problem in Oblivion was the level scaling mechanic. Before I ever did the main quest, I spent a bunch of time doing all of the quests in the Imperial City, stealing from people, and making potions. So, I was leveling shit that did not help me in combat. When I finally left the Imperial City, bandits were running around in glass armor and the rats that you could one-shot were now epic battles.
The second biggest problem was the level design. Most of the random caves and dungeons were soulless. Most had no story behind them and were just filled with seemingly random monsters and loot and you would see the same things over and over. Even the Oblivion Gates you eventually would just cruise through without paying attention.
It was actually not that great, honestly.
It crashed a lot and bugged out. I played it in between drug pulls of WoW.
I was a little let down after playing so many hours of Morrowind. But it was still a lot of fun.
The scope of the game was incredible. Everything else… well uh… it all just worked.
Dude… you just had to be there
Oblivion did a handful of cool things while a truckload of interactions exploded, it was wild and you had to be there to appreciate it.
Yeah the remake is so goooo- Fatal error
Oh it was beautiful
Taken as a whole, Oblivion was astonishing in so many ways. It was like a more polished version of Morrowind that had learned what worked and what didn’t.
I remember getting it for Christmas with a 360 from my uncle. Playing the remaster now is just like how I felt way back in 2006.
Oblivion was one of the first games that solidified the graphical and technical jump from the PS2 era.
It was incredible to see all the items on a table fly all over the place after being hit by a fireball.
It was incredible to kill a marauder and see their sowrd fall down a hill after killing him.
It was incredible how the AI caused some funny stuff, like npcs eating a poisoned apple from a table and then dying, because all npcs need to eat.
Ob also was one of the first game to heavily use parallax textures, wich made flat surfaces have the illusion of volume, bricks on a walla would pop up and respond to light sources. Not even Skyrim used this feature as prominently years later.
It was amazing, but this remake is fucking amazing too
I remember nearly frothing installing Bootcamp on my Dad’s brand new MacBook in the spring of 2008 just so I could play Oblivion on it, counting down the discrete ticks of the progress bar, because my Mom somehow bought a PC copy for me the year prior, but didn’t want to upgrade our family computer to play it because “me and my brother spent too much time playing video games”, which was absolutely correct, and still is.
This is how I remember the sewer gate _looking_ when I first stepped out on my very first playthrough. An absolutely incredible memory.
So many fond memories of that game from my adolescence, but footage/coverage of the remaster’s performance issues have left me feeling quite sour, so I’ll buy it in 4 months time when there’s a discount and (hopefully) performance issues are addressed.
I remember being in such awe at pulling the hanging chains around the cell in the very beginning.
I was playing a ton of Guild Wars and WoW when it came out, skipped it entirely.
This was my first TES game. I ignored the main quest, broke into every house, finished thieves guild and dark brotherhood. It was great.
I remember morrowind & oblivion but was young so all I remember was murdering all the shop keeps – I didn’t do anything else or remember anything else I did
Yeah these experiences are very far and few in between now. New and exciting gaming experiences still exist but they don’t hit as hard as they used to and they don’t last as long either. Just a by product of times and perceptions moving forward.
Characters were terrible for the time. Dungeon design was a joke; every dungeon looked the same, had all the same parts, they were just glued together in different ways.
The sheer hype and excitement of this game was insane. This was before you could just download the game so had to actually buy a hard copy, problem was, everyone else wanted to do the same.
I recall at least here in the UK lots of pre orders failing to ship on release day due to the sheer amount of orders. Mine was delayed so had it ordered in 2 other locations to try and get it sooner and then return the extra copies.
I have never done that for any other game, but my god, it was glorious. Hours spent just in awe of the graphics, taking hundreds of screenshots to share with friends.
It’s funny how your mind plays tricks on you as when I see the remaster screenshots, I think that is how it looked back in the day.
I was ruined by Skyrim before I played Oblivion. As such, I didn’t get to far into it. The remake on the other hand has reignited my fervor.
On launch honestly it was a bit… whelming. The terrain and characters didn’t look that pretty even for the time, they changed from text heavy in Morrowind to stiff voice acting, the AI was heavily overhyped and was a letdown (despite actually being a pretty big step up – they really overpromised), and eventually the level scaling really emerged as a big issue, despite it being mostly fixable by changing 6 numbers in the editor toolkit. Like all BSG games though, it has some wonderful aspects and after some patches, expansions and mods it was pretty amazing.
Imo, this one is much better. Not even because of the updated visuals. I hated the original leveling system, remastered did a much better job with it.
This and Persona were responsible for tv burn in from status bars.. guess played them a bit too much ( on console, hence TV)
Oh my god I haven’t played since the original release & this image just sent me straight through a nostalgia wormhole.
What a magical experience it was to play this as a kid, thanks for the reminder 🙂
Man, it was pure magic.
You should have seen Morrowind then.
*That* is the remake we need.
I played Morrowind for thousands of hours before Oblivion was released and I was hyped at first but quickly became underwhelmed with the game. The copy/paste ruins and lore felt lacking compared to MW. I recently replayed Oblivion and like it more now than i did then
I’ve closed so many Oblivion Gates I am one.
I just walked through that gate for the first time ever. Never played the original but after seeing how much people are enjoying this remakester, giving it a go. So far so good!
Being able to walk anywhere freely was the coolest experience ever. Picking a direction and just going. Climbing any mountain. Such a surreal experience.
Yeah it was pretty sick… learning that you could go into literally every building and just steal everyone’s shit all over town really awakened something in me.
Oblivion was good at a few things. Streamlined combat-good, spell casting – good, exploration -good, scale-good, visuals-good.
Oblivion was ass at many things too.
Caves were all l the same, skeletons or goblins. Ayleid ruins largely the same. Weapons were dumed down from Morrowind, armor stripped down to light or heavy dumping entirely the medium armor class. Horses had no purpose what so ever. Lots of the NPC faces were good awful smears of color that zoomed WAY too close when conversation initiated. The cities were scaled pretty badly in terms of size, every city felt like everyone’s job was city guard and a handful of named NPCs that wandered around, however I understand that was likely limitations of the engine.
I’m not trying to shit on the remaster but for as great as oblivion was, tis but a gold plated skeleton of the glory of Morrowind.
Bethesda would strike a fountain of wealth if they nutted up and gave the world the remaster Morrowind deserves. However given how old it’s software is, it needs to be a remake for sure.
As a fan of Morrowind, Oblivion felt like a downgrade in every way except graphics and being voiced.
I wasn’t sure if it was just nostalgia making me think so highly of it compared to Skyrim but after playing it so much since the remaster came out I really don’t think so. I just love the writing, characters, side quest design etc. Glarthir for example is such an interesting character and quest. The world just feels so lived in and real, with complex and unique characters in every town!
Yeah, up until this I’d never really been thrown out into a world with a ‘figure it out or just find your own fun’ mindset from the developers.
Meshuggah!
Exiting the sewers was a one of a kind feeling. You knew you had a whole world at your finger tips and nothing but time to play (I was 18 at the time)
I was there…and it was beautiful.
I remember the first time I saw a thunder and lightning storm in Oblivion when it first came out. I had never seen anything so real in a game before. I just sat there in awe.