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Irish Independent
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered review – the madness has not faded, thankfully
If you know anything about Oblivion, you'll be aware of its fabled foibles, the amusing glitches that accompanied its sweeping medieval fantasy in the land of Tamriel. But perhaps you've only heard of and never played Bethesda's seminal RPG, one of the pinnacles of the Elder Scrolls series before the even more revered Skyrim. Now's your chance, a scarcely conceivable 19 years after its debut as it gets the Remaster treatment while we wait for Bethesda to put a date on Elder Scrolls VI, the next instalment that's been in the oven for many moons. We shouldn't be surprised that Oblivion's remakers chose not to sanitise its lunacies too much. Bethesda built a large open world back in 2006 and the Xbox 360 technology of the time couldn't always reliably handle the permutations of underlying systems. Hence the infamous but largely amusing kinks where characters and the world itself behaved unpredictably at times. Players of the original enjoyed a novel buffet of adventures – wielding magic spells and swords while exploring the Tamriel wilderness, all wrapped in a yarn about an evil sorcerer and portals to hell. Crucially, though, you could ignore the main quest endlessly in favour of swashbuckling exploits in dungeons, forests and cities. Almost as importantly, the bugs in the code could frequently produce a smile on your face for their sheer ridiculousness. Bethesda went on to even better things with 2011's Skyrim, which built on Oblivion's template, albeit featuring possibly even more glitches. Hopefully that remaster is only just around the corner, nonetheless. In the meantime, there's plenty to appreciate in Oblivion's 2025 makeover but despite its occasional brilliance it feels a product of its time despite the new coat of paint. The original voice cast had put in a decent shift – including celebrity performances from the resonant tones of Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean and even Lynda Carter of Wonder Woman fame. But many of the NPCs still look stilted and often a bit freaky. Tamriel felt like an impressively capacious realm back in the day but, two decades on, its boundaries chafe at your freedom as the game sends you pinballing from one side of the map to the other. The hinterlands may be generously loaded with dungeons but they're very obviously copied and pasted from place to place. How often must you sift the junk loot from the real treasure scattered around every location? The answer is tediously often. Oblivion Remastered offers an assortment of concessions to 2025, such as the ability to sprint, a breadcrumb trail to your next objective, a graphical upgrade and a smoothing of levelling curve. Yet the weapons and magic combat that fuel the core gameplay remain clunky and imprecise. It's tricky to disconnect the expectations of the modern gamer from an RPG that was unconventionally innovative back in 2006. Yet Oblivion can still put on an admirable show two decades on and will please many players for whom nostalgia is not the primary motivation.
Daily Record
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Most popular video game-inspired baby names of 2025 revealed
Baby name books may no longer rule supreme with parents turning to the gaming universe for inspiration From much-loved names passed down through generations to titles inspired by a romantic trip you took with your partner before falling pregnant, there are many instances in life that contribute to what we name our child. However, an expert has revealed that traditional baby names in video game characters are inspiring parents worldwide, meaning our penchant for the digital world is actually influencing some of the biggest choices we make in real life. Remember frantically choosing a name for your Skyrim character or Sims family? Now parents are facing that same excitement - and pressure - when naming actual humans. "Gaming is such a big part of modern culture, it's part of who we are," Serge Eliseeff, CEO of Online Free Games, explained. "The characters we connect with through hundreds of gameplay hours become meaningful to us. So it makes perfect sense that their names would top the list when parents are brainstorming baby names." To see which video game names are trending in nurseries, Online Free Games analysed global Google searches for baby name queries related to famous gaming characters. They tracked search patterns over the past year for names from IGDB's top 100 games, looking at how often people searched things like '[name] baby name' or 'is [name] a boy or girl name.' So, from badass heroines to legendary outlaws, read on to see the video game character names parents are hitting "select" on for their little players. Topping the list is Jade, the protagonist from Ubisoft's cult classic Beyond Good & Evil. As a photojournalist fighting against alien conspiracies, Jade represents courage and determination. The name, meaning ' precious stone,' bridges traditional appeal with gaming cool factor. Though the original game came out in 2003, anticipation for the long-awaited sequel has kept Jade relevant in gaming culture. The name's somewhat gender-neutral sound and short, punchy style fits modern naming trends, while still honouring gaming history. Coming in second is Max, the time-rewinding photography student from Life is Strange. This choice highlights the growing preference for shorter, unisex names that work across gender lines. Max (short for Maxine in the game) represents a character known for compassion and complex decision-making. The name's gender flexibility mirrors current naming trends, with parents increasingly choosing names that work for any gender. Life is Strange's likely resonates with millennial and Gen Z parents who grew up gaming. Rounding out the top three is Arthur, after Arthur Morgan, the rugged outlaw with a heart of gold from Red Dead Redemption 2. Classic names can clearly get a popularity boost when connected to compelling modern characters. Arthur, meaning 'bear' or 'noble,' delivers traditional masculinity with a touch of cowboy cool. The character's redemption arc and moral complexity make him more than just a typical video game protagonist, giving the name depth and resonance for parents who appreciate nuanced storytelling alongside Western aesthetics. The rest of the top 10 features a balanced mix of classic and contemporary names. Lee from Telltale's The Walking Dead and Isaac from the horror series Dead Space represent strong male options. Meanwhile, Faith from Mirror's Edge offers spiritual meaning alongside gaming cred. Apollo from Ace Attorney brings mythological weight, while Chloe from Uncharted and Claire from Resident Evil represent timeless female options. Surprisingly, the iconic Link from The Legend of Zelda barely makes the top 10, suggesting parents may prefer names that blend more easily into traditional naming conventions. "What we're seeing here is the natural evolution of how culture shapes our most personal choices," Serge went on. "Parents have always named children after heroes – it's just that today's heroes are more likely to be virtual. "The popularity of names like Jade and Arthur shows that parents are looking for names with substance and meaning. They're choosing characters known for their courage, resilience, and moral complexity – qualities any parent would want their child to embody. "It's fascinating to see how the lines between virtual worlds and real life continue to blur, with video games now influencing one of the most significant decisions a parent can make." Top 10 most searched baby names inspired by video games Rank Name Interest Over Time (avg, total) Gender 1 Jade 89.72 Beyond Good & Evil Female 2 Max 84.91 Life is Strange Female 3 Arthur 82.91 Red Dead Redemption 2 Male 4 Lee 81.75 The Walking Dead Male 5 Isaac 80.23 Dead Space Male 6 Faith 78.91 Mirror's Edge Female 7 Apollo 78.66 Ace Attorney Male 8 Chloe 78.55 Uncharted Female 9 Claire 77.60 Resident Evil Female 10 Link 77.38 The Legend of Zelda Male Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. 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Metro
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
The Elder Scrolls 6 is still on the way - here's what we know so far
Bethesda's sequel to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has been in development for years, but several rumours have teased what to expect. It's been 14 years since The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim first appeared in 2011, and since then Bethesda has done everything but release a sequel. Aside from putting Skyrim on every platform under the sun, the studio has released Fallout 4, Fallout 76, several The Elder Scrolls spin-offs, and a new sci-fi IP in 2023's Starfield. Just recently, Bethesda also launched a remastered version of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, presumably as a stop-gap for the next mainline instalment. For many who are still playing Skyrim, and now Oblivion Remastered, The Elder Scrolls 6 is probably one of the most anticipated games of the decade. If you're craving some kind of solace during the long wait for its release, we've assembled everything we know about Bethesda's pivotal sequel. Incredibly, The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced way back on June 10, 2018 at Bethesda's E3 event that year. Nothing was shown apart from a teaser trailer which showed off the logo, and a nondescript landscape. At the time, the game's director, Todd Howard, warned it would be 'a very long way off', and he wasn't lying. Since then, we've heard small updates on the game's progress. The Elder Scrolls 6 entered active production at Bethesda in 2023, following the release of Starfield, and it was playable via early builds in March 2024. As confirmed in a Telegraph interview with Todd Howard, the long-awaited sequel will also run on Bethesda's Creation Engine 2, the same engine used for Starfield (so, yes, that probably means the facial animation will still be bad). Bethesda has not announced a release date for The Elder Scrolls 6. However, according to Microsoft documents in the Federal Trade Commission case from 2023, the sequel is 'expected 2026 or later'. This was immediately put into question when Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said it would be 'five+ years away' in an interview in the same year – which suggests it wouldn't be out until 2028 at the earliest and, at that point, presumably on the next generation of consoles. Considering we've seen no actual footage of The Elder Scrolls 6, it's safe to say it will probably launch at some point after 2026 – unless Bethesda is planning the biggest surprise shadowdrop of all time. Bethesda hasn't revealed the setting, but rumours point to it either being Hammerfell and/or the neighbouring region of High Rock. Each mainline entry is named after an existing area within the fictional world of Tamriel, which is made up of nine provinces, and these two areas have not received their own mainline game yet. As for the gameplay, several rumours suggest dragons will be involved, along with naval battles, ship customisation, and underwater exploration. A leak from an alleged Bethesda environment designer suggests it will have Egyptian, Mediterranean and north African influences too in an 'explorable archipelago'. While Bethesda hasn't confirmed if The Elder Scrolls 6 will be exclusive to Xbox, following Microsoft's acquisition of the studio, documents released in 2023, as part of the FTC case, suggest that was the original plan. More Trending However, Xbox's strategy has changed quite drastically since then, with many Microsoft-published games now arriving on other platforms either at launch or just after. For example, Doom: The Dark Ages is set to launch across PlayStation 5, Xbox, and PC simultaneously in May 2025, while Indiana Jones And The Great Circle arrived on PlayStation 5 just four months after it launched on Xbox and PC. Bethesda's last major role-playing title, Starfield, has remained an Xbox exclusive for nearly two years though, so there's no clear rule at the moment. While it's unclear if this multi-platform drive could reverse as we approach Microsoft's next console, based on its current strategy it seems unlikely The Elder Scrolls 6 will remain an Xbox exclusive for long – if at all. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Games Inbox: Will all video games be £80 from now on? MORE: Iconic Sega composer retires after 41 years, is immediately rehired MORE: Xbox games facing new £80 price tag as console prices rise by £50
The Guardian
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
I had a passionate crush on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Could it still thrill me 19 years later?
For a 10-day period the summer of 2006, in between handing in my resignation at my first job on a games magazine and returning to Scotland to start university, I did almost nothing except eat, sleep and play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on my Xbox 360. I hauled my TV from the living room of my small, unpleasantly warm flatshare into my bedroom so I could play uninterrupted; it was all I could think about. My character was a Khajiit thief, a kind of manky lion in black-leather armour with excellent pickpocketing skills. One afternoon, I decided to see whether I could steal every single object in the smallish town of Bravil, and got caught by the guards a couple of hours in. I did a runner, dropping a trail of random plates, cheese wheels and doublets in my wake, and the guards pursued me all the way to the other side of the map, where they finally got entangled with a bear who helpfully killed them for me. I bet a lot of you will have had a similar experience with a Bethesda game – if not Oblivion, then Skyrim or perhaps Fallout 3. There's something intoxicating about these role-playing games, the way they lay out their worlds for you like a buffet, inviting you to gorge. Go where you like! Learn some weird spells and try them out on bandits! Nip into a cave to fight a necromancer and end up getting ambushed by vampires! Open-world games such as this are exhaustingly common now but Oblivion was the first one I ever played. Lately I've been devouring it all again, after Bethesda surprise-released a remake last Friday. I say it was a surprise. In fact, the Oblivion remake/remaster has been one of the games industry's worst-kept secrets for months, just behind the Switch 2. Nonetheless, I am thrilled about it. Oblivion has, over two decades, become at least as famous for its technical weirdness and amusing glitches as for its pioneering design, and I was relieved to find Bethesda has not tried very hard to fix it. Characters still get stuck in walls, repeating their asinine lines of dialogue. The facial animations are still off. The game crashed on me two minutes into Patrick Stewart's opening lines as the soon-to-be-murdered emperor of Cyrodiil, and I have twice fallen through the world into the endless void beneath. Weird stuff happens all the time, and it's rarely intentional. They've even preserved an infamous voice-acting blooper. It is a perfect time capsule of 00s accidental gaming comedy, and I wouldn't change it for the world. I remembered Cyrodiil as enormous and picturesque, full of gently glowing magical ruins and rivers that caught the light in just the right way. By 2025 standards, though, it is weeny, perhaps the size of the opening section of any current game's gigantic map. (I'm thinking particularly of Avowed, the recent Elder Scrolls-alike from fellow Microsoft studio Obsidian.) The imposing-looking Imperial City at the centre is a village of tiny interconnected districts with around 30 people in it. I don't know how I managed to spend more than 100 hours in such a relatively small space as a teenager, but as I rode around last weekend I found, unexpectedly, that I still knew it intimately. I'd meet a new character and remember details of some quest I hadn't thought about for years, or ride around a corner on my armoured horse and know exactly where I was from the view. In Oblivion, your character develops according to what you do with them. You don't meaningfully have to choose between magic, stealth and strength; pick up a greatsword and start using it and your heavy-weapons stat will start increasing. (The trick back in the day was to crouch into a sneak position, use a rubber band to pull the controller's analogue sticks together, and spin around in circles until your stealth stat hit maximum.) This is part of what makes it feel like a buffet: you can become a master thief, run the mages' guild and be a combat arena champion all at once. It is a game of choice with no consequence, beguilingly frictionless and generous. A small world that revolves entirely around you. I have a theory that the Bethesda RPG spell only really works once. You get one life-consuming experience with an Elder Scrolls, and then whatever you play next feels like a repeat; I played Skyrim and Fallout 3 for ages but never finished either. It turns out Oblivion is still my game; I can lose myself in it for hours where newer, more sophisticated open-world games start to get on my nerves. I still hate the Oblivion Gates, portals to a generic hellscape where you have to spend a tedious 20 minutes fighting demons in towers with flaming corpses hanging from the ceilings; their vibe is very 00s metal album art. But the beauty of a game like this is that you can effectively ignore the entire plot and fool around as you please. The Oblivion remaster illustrates that old games don't always need fixing. It looks different, but it's got the same soul. I imagine my teenage self would say the same about me. If you haven't yet played Blue Prince, stop whatever you're doing and download it now. You are the teenage heir to a giant mansion, with one catch: if you want to keep it, you must find its secret 46th room. Also, every time you go to sleep, the mansion resets, so your route through it will be different every day, drafting each room from a random selection of blueprints, occasionally finding a chamber you've never seen before. I spent 40 hours playing through this with my eldest son, who acted as note-taker, and it is up there with the best puzzle games I've ever played. Even after you've found Room 46, there are deeper mysteries to probe at; a couple of people I know have truly gone off the deep end with it. Its sedate pace and intellectual challenge were both ideally suited to playing during a period of convalescence. Wonderfully, your reward for playing is always more knowledge. Available on: PC, Xbox, PS5 Estimated playtime: 30-plus hours Sydney Sweeney is to star in a film adaptation of Hazelight's co-op game Split/Fiction. How is that going to work? My partner and I are halfway through this game and, though it's a blast to play and enjoyably bizarre when it wants to be, the plot and characterisation are … not the most complex. Via Video Game Chronicle, some details on October's Ghost of Yotei, the sequel to the gorgeous but bloated Ghost of Tsushima. 'The game will see the player hunt down the Yotei Six, a group of warriors who have caused death and destruction across Japan,' they report. 'As the player hunts them down, a sash worn by the protagonist, Atsu, will display the names of the Yotei Six that she is pursuing.' How very Arya Stark. Call of Duty's Warzone has become famous for it's odd celebrity tie-ins, which have allowed you to, say, gun down dozens of peers as Nicki Minaj or Lionel Messi. The latest choice? Seth Rogen, as part of a new (lord help us) 'weed-themed' content package. A very important essay here from Gizmodo: isn't it past time we got a good Predator game? Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion Playing to win: are video game movies replacing superhero blockbusters? Why novelists are becoming video game writers – and vice-versa Atomfall might have been an apocalyptic classic if it weren't for all the walking | Dominik Diamond Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 – reality-bending daftness | ★★★☆☆ Until Dawn – efficient, if unscary, video game horror | ★★★☆☆ This week's question comes from reader Toby: 'Video game movies and TV shows are all the rage, and I'm curious to see how they adapt The Last of Us Part II. I thought the interactive medium really enhanced its emotions and themes. Can its story still have the same impact in a passive medium? On that note, what great video game narratives do you think absolutely cannot be adapted into a movie or a TV series?' I have just watched the third episode of the second season of The Last of Us, and it's clear that they're diverging more from the game's plot this time than they did in season one. They kind of had to, because as you point out, the game's impact largely comes down to playing it from both points of view, which won't necessarily work on TV. That said, the first game also owed a lot of its emotional heft to the fact that you, Joel, were the one doing terrible things, whether you as a player agreed with him or not. The TV series couldn't pull those same levers, so it expanded The Last of Us by showing new perspectives, going into deeper detail on things that wouldn't have been practical or fun to play through; I'm thinking particularly of that wonderful episode about Bill and Frank, which would never have worked in a game. This is the art of the adaptation: finding something fresh to offer. On that basis: there is no great video game narrative that couldn't be adapted for film or TV by a sufficiently talented and understanding writer. The key word there is adapted, not transliterated – because a film or show has to offer a new interpretation or perspective. That said, there are plenty of games whose plots are simply too bad to ever make for a good TV show or film. It'd take a true visionary to get anything worth watching out of, say, Heavy Rain. If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
Newsweek
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Oblivion Remaster Characters Take Internet by Storm
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered game has brought a visual overhaul to one of gaming's most beloved fantasy worlds and players have been creating some wild-looking characters since the update. The remaster overhauled the character creation screen, which is a staple of Bethesda games, into one of the most versatile creators seen in the industry, and players have quickly realized just how flexible it can be. Why It Matters On April 22, Bethesda announced and launched the updated version of its 2006 classic Oblivion, the prequel to Skyrim. Oblivion, which was the fourth entry in The Elder Scrolls franchise, is known for its expansive open world, deep storytelling and pioneering voice acting. The remaster includes reworked character models, enhanced textures, a modernized lighting system and refined facial expressions. What To Know Oblivion originally debuted in 2006 on PC and Xbox 360, expanding to PlayStation 3 the following year, through a co-publishing partnership between Bethesda and 2K Games, a label under Take-Two Interactive. It quickly developed a reputation for clunky mechanics and weird-looking character models, but the original game has retained a strong fanbase who appreciate the charm of Bethesda's older, buggier games. Like the original game, the character creation stage is the first thing many players have seen, so it's a good thing that the creation process has been improved so much. Facial animations have been improved to create more natural character expressions, while still retaining the recognizable style that defined the original game. my friend made JD Vance in the Oblivion character creator 😭 — Spinelius (@spinelius) April 29, 2025 Several of the most popular creations brought back the trend of distorted images of Vice President JD Vance, with one character dubbed "Sir Vancealot." This is my magnum opus in Oblivion Remaster. Sir Vancealot — CAMELCAST OFFICIAL (@CAMELCASTOff) April 22, 2025 Another player recreated the face of comedian Shane Gillis in the creator, right down to the mustache. Other creations focused on pushing the sliders in the character generator to the extreme, with heavily distorted features and proportions. "Not my original intent but the Oblivion character creator has decided I am adventuring through Cyrodiil as white Snoop Dogg," one player wrote, sharing his character's look on social media. Not my original intent but the Oblivion character creator has decided I am adventuring through Cyrodiil as white Snoop Dogg. — The Whole Rabbit (@1WholeRabbit) April 26, 2025 Players praised the new look of the creator, which uses new lighting techniques to add a polish that wasn't there in the original game. What People Are Saying One player remarked that it somehow made the strange creations more realistic, writing on the game's Reddit page: "It somehow still looks like an intentional design rather than of clunky mess these characters normally do. This was obviously made to look as ridiculous as possible, but would not look out of place at all in a claymation film." What Happens Next Bethesda announced that further updates are planned, including minor gameplay tweaks and additional refinements based on community feedback. The remaster, co-developed by Virtuos and Bethesda Game Studios, is available for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
