Plenty of remasters and remakes have presented games we love in a whole new light to enjoy once again on modern hardware.Demon’s Soulson PS5;Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4; the more recentSilent Hill 2. Each has gone above and beyond to deliver a modern experience of classic gaming memories, but none have gone quite in the direction ofOblivion Remastered.
Games often walk the line between remaster and remake, unsure of which label to use. Despite the above examples being remakes whileOblivion Remastered is, well, a remaster, it instead strikes a balance between the two and recreates something exactly as we remember it, both from the ground up and without changing a thing at the same time.
Four Years Of Work On Something Mostly Unchanged
People will continue to debate Oblivion Remastered being a remaster or a remake no matter what, but here’s the rundown: the game is the same under the hood, running on Gamebryo as it always has, with the ‘brains’ of the game being what they were in 2006. However, between all that game logic and our gamer eyes lies a trick: Gamebryo’s thinking gets output through Unreal Engine 5 instead of locally in-engine. Which means that, for the most part, we have a 2006 game running on some of the most modern, demanding visual software available.
This also explains why it doesn’t run especially well on consolesandPC right now.
This isn’t as simple as sending the code to a different place and ‘boom, the 20-year-old game looks like a 2025 game now,’ however. Despite the core game remaining mostly untouched to keep it genuinely faithful, Virtuos spent four years working on this remaster, and most of that time would have been spent on assets.
Every single asset in this game has been re-created by hand in Unreal Engine 5, so that the 2006 game can output everything as it would have all those years ago, just with shinier swords and rockier… rocks. It’s an incredible undertaking, and one of the most faithful and passion-led aspects of development all the same.
It’s Less Than A Remake, And That’s A Good Thing
Despite the recreation of everything, the core experience remaining the same is largely why this is a remaster rather than a remake - and that’s exactly what makes Oblivion Remastered so special.
The beloved original game remains playable on modern hardware through backward compatibility or streaming, but it looked a little rough around the edges. But now, we have Oblivion once more - as we remember it - modernised for current hardware in an almost purely cosmetic way, with a few tweaks to the leveling system and quality of life improvements across the board.
This is a shining example of what a remaster should look like, and even what remakes should strive for; the game that we love, still there under the surface, with a heartfelt coat of fresh paint. Oblivion Remastered is just as special as the original game, and it doesn’t feel like I’m playing a 2025 re-release -it feels like I’m just playing Oblivion again.
