Latest news with #TheElderScrollsIV:Oblivion
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@
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Oblivion Had Glitches Galore. Thankfully, They're Still There.
When The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released in 2006, it was clear that the studio Bethesda had successfully expanded its fantasy franchise's charm and oddball magic. The premise of Oblivion is similar to other modern role-playing games, giving the player a seemingly insurmountable objective and then crucial skills and weaponry on the journey. High-definition graphical processing power for that era contributed to indelible world building, allowing players to freely travel the cities and caverns of Cyrodiil. But what made Oblivion one of the genre's most celebrated games was the agency it afforded players, the expansive environment it threw them into and the way it fully embraced the dorkiness of its fantasy world. In the mid-2000s, the ways players experienced video games were transforming. User-generated content was propelling Web 2.0, and social media, like Facebook, was rising. Although Oblivion was a single-player game, its wonky artificial intelligence, character dialogue and player interactions made it a watershed moment for online memes. Characters having a conversation would walk away from each other midsentence. Some jumped out of street corners to greet you with a quest and an eerie smile. The rag-doll physics of enemies coupled with their heinous death shrieks made battles more humorous than haunting. The technical flaws run counter to the cool aura of more recent fantasy role-playing games, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) and Oblivion's successor, Skyrim (2011), which produced notable memes of its own. But Oblivion's rawness resonated. Online pages and forums dedicated to its goofy glitches and bugs still garner an audience. In the game's opening levels, players can raise their Sneak skill by quietly walking circles behind a sewer rat that runs into a corner endlessly. So when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered was announced last week — and then immediately released — some worried that the polish would wear away the charm. Yet Bethesda has somehow managed the opposite, which became clear to me after spending five days doing everything but the main quest in the refreshed digital landscape of Cyrodill. The world is stunning. The Imperial City Sewers you're meant to traverse while learning the basics of the game look hideous and vile. The rolling green hills, once an escape from my stifling nonsocial life in high school, still soothe me. The way the aurora borealis stretches across the night sky, coupled with the unforgettable soundtrack, breathe a deep sense of solace into an otherwise purely digital experience. And the nonplayer characters are still strange, still overly kind, still poignant, like the wife whose missing husband you eventually discover trapped in a magical painting. The quest 'A Brush With Death' is memorable for all its oddities, including freakish trolls and the watercolor effect applied to the entire level. During an online presentation last week, several members of Oblivion's original development team recounted how the game broke through in 2006. That was no guarantee in a year of big releases, such as Gears of War, Saints Row, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Todd Howard, the executive producer at Bethesda, said that each of the Elder Scrolls games — including Arena (1994), Daggerfall (1996), Morrowind (2002) — tries 'to define role-playing games and open-world games for their generation.' Oblivion, he said, was a critical moment for the studio, which has since developed Fallout and Starfield games. Some of the bugs and glitches in the original Oblivion are still present, with the ability to duplicate highly valuable items and create short cuts to master skills. One popular exploit lets the player quickly increase their Security skill with a single lock pick. An expanded character creator has given rise to new memes altogether, including 'Sir Vancealot' — a riff on the internet's obsession with bloated images of the vice president — and other visual abominations. Nearly two decades ago, Oblivion proved that games did not need overly polished worlds to thrive. Moments from some of its eccentric characters live forever online. During one high elf's dialogue in the original Oblivion, a dissatisfied voice actor can be heard objecting to and then immediately rerecording her line about thieves and their break-ins. The clip, flub and all, made its way into the remaster. As one online commenter noted, 'Don't mess with imperfection.'
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
《上古卷軸4：遺忘之都Remastered》上市首週成績亮眼，官方宣布遊玩人數破400萬、Steam同上也破20萬
Bethesda 官方在本月 22 日正式發售了 2006 年時推出的奇幻 RPG 大作《上古卷軸4》重製版《上古卷軸4：遺忘之都Remastered》（The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion），以 2025 年的技術讓玩家們能夠重溫經典，結果全球玩家們的反應也非常熱烈，昨（26）天 Bethesda 官方就發布好消息，確認這款重製版已經讓超過 400 萬人重返遊戲世界，寫下自己的冒險故事。 在一發售就登上 Steam 的暢銷排行榜冠軍之後，Bethesda 官方昨（26）天再度發布有關於《上古卷軸4：遺忘之都Remastered》的好消息，稱截至目前為止已經有超過 400 萬位玩家進入遊戲世界，並且也非常感謝各位玩家的遊玩與重溫回憶。 We are so grateful to the over 4 million of you that have already ventured into Cyrodiil with Oblivion Remastered. Thank you! — Bethesda Game Studios (@BethesdaStudios) April 25, 2025 而玩家們也開始敲碗，詢問 Bethesda 接下來又將重製哪部經典作品，並且也好奇在這 400 萬位玩家中實際帶來了多少銷量，只不過，或許有一點不用懷疑，就是《上古卷軸4：遺忘之都Remastered》真的是近期最熱門的遊戲之一，因為根據 SteamDB 的數據顯示，目前在 Steam 上《上古卷軸4：遺忘之都Remastered》最高峰時共有超過 20 萬名玩家同時遊玩，並且直到目前為止平均都有超過 10 萬名玩家同時重溫這款經典遊戲。 緊貼最新科技資訊、網購優惠，追隨 Yahoo Tech 各大社交平台！ 🎉📱 Tech Facebook： 🎉📱 Tech Instagram： 🎉📱 Tech WhatsApp 社群： 🎉📱 Tech WhatsApp 頻道： 🎉📱 Tech Telegram 頻道：
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Switch 2 Preorders Open To Pure Chaos And More Of The Week's Top Stories
This week saw a few massive happenings in the world of games. First and foremost, after being delayed to allow Nintendo to take stock of the potential impact of President Trump's chaotic implementation of tariffs, the company finally kicked off retail pre-orders for the Switch 2 here in the U.S., and the results were chaotic. People struggling to place orders on sites like Walmart's and Target's encountered all kinds of errors, confusion, and sometimes even cancelation of orders they thought they'd successfully placed. Elsewhere, Bethesda finally released The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered after years of rumors and speculation, and Marvel Rivals support players are going on strike. Read on for these stories and more. Switch 2 preorders went live online at 12:01 a.m. ET and were every bit the mess some fans feared: pages timing out, error messages that weren't real, and email cancelations being received just moments after it seemed like orders had gone through. There must be a better way to do these. Not in time for the Switch 2 launch, unfortunately. - Ethan Gach Read More After many reports, leaks, and rumors, Bethesda officially unveiled The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. And the $50 remaster is launching today on Xbox Series X/S, Game Pass, PS5, and PC. - Zack Zwiezen Read More Though we've known it's coming for a few days now, today Bethesda showed off its fancy new remaster of 2006's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it looks spectacular. It's also out, like, right-friggin-now! If you want to check out the whole reveal, you can do so here. But if you just want to peruse some lovely screenshots we nabbed during the reveal, read on. - Claire Jackson Read More Being a support player in a hero shooter is a thankless job. You keep everyone alive, and then your bad teammates still blame you when they run off and die trying to 1v6 the enemy team. Things have gotten so bad in the eyes of some Marvel Rivals' Strategist mains that a group of them are going on 'strike' by refusing to play the role and instead queueing up to play as tank and damage heroes instead. - Kenneth Shepard Read More After years of rumors, leaks, and speculation, Bethesda has finally confirmed the worst-kept video game industry secret of 2025. Yes, we are getting an Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster. - Zack Zwiezen Read More The worst-kept secret of the year, Bethesda's current-gen remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, finally shadow-dropped yesterday and the Xbox-360-era open-world RPG has wasted no time in reminding fans why it was such a hit nearly two decades ago. Complete with refreshed graphics, updated gameplay, and cherished memes intact, Oblivion Remastered is already topping Steam charts and taking players on an Unreal Engine 5-made trip down memory lane. - Ethan Gach Read More Switch 2 preorders don't begin in the U.S. until late tonight (12:01 a.m. ET on April 24), but they've already been underway in other parts of the world and even Nintendo has been shocked by the level of demand so far. The company said that, with over 2.2 million fans seeking to preorder a Switch 2 directly from My Nintendo in Japan alone, the demand already 'far exceeds' its ability to fulfill shipments to that country at launch. - Ethan Gach Read More Just an hour after Switch 2 pre-orders went live on April 24 in the United States, Kotaku has spotted over two dozen eBay listings for the upcoming Nintendo console. Some are real. Others are actually people making fake listings to throw off bots and scalpers. - Zack Zwiezen Read More kinjavideo-197541 The 4X strategy sequel just got a ton more highly requested features kinjavideo-197531 It seems like Goofy's son Max is a fan of his dad's multiverse adventure For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Time of India
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
'Absolutely insane drop': The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered surprise launch sends fans into frenzy; here's where to play it
Finally, Bethesda has announced the release of its much-awaited game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, on Tuesday after a string of leaks and reports that led to a surprise launch of the game in April. Well, a remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is probably the worst-kept secret in the gaming industry, which has now finally been released. Back in 2006, Oblivion was released, and since then, it is considered to be one of the most beloved action role-playing games, which is believed to be the best in the popular The Elder Scrolls series. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered: Leaks, rumours and more For the past couple of weeks, before the surprise release of the game, there were all sorts of leaks, rumours and speculations circulating, from insiders claiming the game was to be released on April 21 and more. On the other hand, Virtuos Studios, a company understood to be working on the remaster, sustained a leak with screenshots doing the rounds on social media. Why Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is a Huge Hit According to Indy100, remaster seems to be one of the biggest hits online because it did what all good remasters should have done. Apart from that, the developers have done key improvements from the original in terms of gameplay and presentation without completely overhauling it. Sharing an example, the report said some animations still retain the charming awkwardness that fans loved in the original game, along with much of the original dialogue, featuring incredibly funny lines from characters with those iconic quotes back again. Return to Tamriel and close shut the jaws of Oblivion in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Available now! Gamers react to the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered The game strikes the perfect balance, with gamers loving the blend of upgrades and the preservation of the unforgettable elements that define Oblivion. Fans share their reactions to the trailer of the game, and one said, "I can't wait to walk into the Oblivion gate in Kvatch and wake up on a prisoner carriage in Skyrim." "Game was rigged from the start," another said. "Sexiest thing I have seen in quite a while and its on gamepass right now im in heaven" "Quit your job and go play it" "Its absolute banger, if you haven't played. Dunno about the price tag for those who have." "I really like this method of releasing things. I understand they want to let everyone know early what games are in development, but I think a simple announcement of "We're doing this thing!", and then silence until a reveal trailer and same day drop is more exciting and less exhausting than the constant hype. I really liked also having the introduction, and little interviews with people who worked on it, etc." "Absolutely insane shadow drop! Downloading it right now 🔥" Absolutely insane shadow drop! Downloading it right now 🔥 Where and how to play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion? The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is now available to purchase across PC, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. The game's Standard Edition costs Rs. 4162 on Steam, while the Deluxe Edition comes in at Rs. 4,995. Originally, the game was released on PC and Xbox 360 in 2006 and received widespread critical acclaim, winning various Game of the Year awards at the time.
