The Oblivion Remastered game is finally here and it looks, well, modern. And by modern I mean brown. The mud’s brown, the water’s brown, and the grass is brown. It’s all extremely brown and I’m not sure how to feel about that as someone who was wowed by Bethesda’s bright fantasy world 19 years ago.
Comparing screenshots between old Oblivion and Oblivion Remastered make it pretty obvious: There’s a thick haze hanging over everything that darkens every scene. The entire world looks like a bonus level in PowerWash Simulator waiting to be blasted back to its original look.
In terms of detail, it certainly looks improved. Torches glow in the darkness, water shimmers in the sunlight, and docks look like actual wood and not mossy stone. But the actual mossy stone is now charcoal for some reason. The original game was much brighter, lightening up the grassy hills and trees, but Unreal Engine 5 has the remaster looking burnt.
Interior sections in Oblivion Remastered are a bit better. The amazing intro to the game where you escape prison with Patrick Stewart is all suffocating stone corridors and the occasional beam of light bleeding through the ceiling. It’s surprisingly close to the chilly vibe of the original. In fact, it might be an example of what the improved lighting gets you when it’s not working with overcooked textures.
The pale character faces from the original didn’t survive the remaster, which is mostly an improvement to me. In a perfect world, we’d get the weirdly smeared NPC mugs of the past in 4K, but I’ll take the hyper-detailed wrinkles and pores if it means better facial animations can exist. And don’t worry, when they open their mouths, they still sound just as goofy as before.
I just can’t get over how muddy the outside has become in the remaster. But I’m also the person who won’t forgive Virtuos for turning the stylistic Dark Souls bonfire into a realistic fire in Dark Souls: Remastered. It’s also entirely possible that Oblivion Remastered’s visuals coalesce the deeper you get into it and explore new areas. If they don’t, I’m at least happy that the original Oblivion is still available whenever I want to go back.
