This is one of those gems that maybe you've heard a lot of people talk about but you never actually sat down to play. Or maybe you did play it but its been years since. Nonetheless this is a fantastic title in the TES series and while it has its caveats its is still worth running in today's age. It may not have skyrim's more robust dialogue system but the main & side quests are very rich and the world building is certainly up to bethesda's par. For many this was beth's magnum opus for quite some time and while I don't agree with it I can understand why people view it as so. As an older bethesda title it can be a little difficult to mod but hey thats why I got yall with a modular modding guide (only sections 1-3 are mandatory.)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009367763

Played on PS3 and did some of the Dark Brotherhood and all of the Thieves' Guild questlines.

Still a lot more to do in the game, but will replay fully on the PC.

Cons:
Leveling system is fucking stupid and ruins the strength of progression

-clean the tutorial
-kill a dude and sleep
-joins the dark brotherhood
-do the questline
-quit

Despite the age and its infamous quirks, I still think exploring Cyrodiil remains one of the most arresting RPG experiences out there. A prisoner in the cells beneath the Imperial City, you find yourself freed after the Emperor himself escapes through a hidden tunnel in your cell. When he is assassinated by cultists trying to summon the monstrous daedric prince Mehrunes Dagon, he tasks you with finding his lost son and heir and help him defend the world. Of course, in true open-world RPG fashion you can entirely ignore this; there's a staggering freedom once you're out in the world, with tons to find and explore.

The gameplay is perhaps the thing people remember least fondly about Oblivion, and many will point to its dodgy level scaling, wonky combat, and menus that are stuck in a hinterland between PC-obsessive and console-friendly as reasons to dislike Oblivion. These are all fair criticisms, but I think the atmosphere of Cyrodiil is hard to match, and I love returning to its fields and forests over and over again.

A spur of the moment playthrough as a break from playing Dragon's Dogma turned into a full main quest playthrough. I found that (with a bit a of light modding) this game stands up better than people give it credit for.

The art direction is actually stunning looking back. The world is well realised and each area of Cyrodiil feels unique. The biggest let down with the art is the character models and animations but they stand out in a very well made fantasy world.

The voice acting is actually quite good most of the time, it's just an obvious shame that they had so few actors but they all really sell it, especially in The Shiver Isles. So when everyone sounds the same you pick up on the idosyncracies of their performace and it starts to wear thin.

The repetivitveness of the Oblivion Gate dungeons was the nadir of the game for me but eventually you learn how to speed run them so it didn't really matter after a while.

The Knights of the Nine questline was very interesting and the set piece moments in that are very well done and had a big impact on me.

The Shivering Isles stands out as a great DLC especially for the time. A whole new map, new items, an interesting quest and writing that leans into the weird tone of the base game.

I wish I could consider this game complete because it's very special to me. My journeys through Tamriel throughout the early days of COVID is where I can pinpoint the cause of my infatuation with RPGs. The world doesn't just feel large, it's genuinely fucking huge, my world map is almost filled out at nearly 200 hours, but there remains hours of exploration worth of unreached corners, and a plethora of incomplete questlines. The Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, random city quests, the Arena, there are so many fun, interesting quests with often simple storylines, but distinct identities that make them uniquely "Oblivion" quests. It's hard to explain why they work so well, with so many reused environments and repetitive objectives, but the exploration that takes place during and between pursuing quest objectives is where the player's primary source of agency stems from. This game is not a good RPG in the pen-and-paper sense, builds are pretty homogeneous, as all skills can be maxed out and specialization is a choice, not a framework that players structure their character around. Where it excels is in adventure, atmosphere, combat, and creativity. All objectives may or may not be pursued for completion of the game, and if a questline is uninteresting to the player, they won't lose much by deciding to focus on something else. Open-world fans can find something they love in this game and focus on it, not compelled to fulfill the gargantuan task of completing everything unless their heart desires it. The voice of Bethesda's writers and developers shines through the charm of the NPCs, the uniqueness and depth of cities, and the mood established through the tranquil OST and sound effects numbing the sense of "epic adventure", a symbol of a bygone era of being a traveling adventurer, enjoying the journey. Unfortunately, the innate need for modding represented by the multitude of bugs and graphical shortcomings, supplemented by visual and gameplay overhauls (including one with Arthas' Lich King armor and Frostmourne) has caused my save to break. I'll have to retire this game, but I'll always be thankful for the joy and appreciation brought to my life while pretending to be a Breton saving Tamriel from the jaws of Oblivion.

The red-headed stepchild of the Elder Scrolls series, where demons come out of his door to Oblivion (This is awful, please don’t actually leave this in). He is both beloved and maligned, criticised yet adored. He ruined gaming forever with just one dlc pack, but- um, the memes are funny?

Skyrim is accessible to a fault, a game that you can just pick up and play. Its greatest moments come in the quiet moments of exploration. Morrowind stands in stark contrast as an alien and inhospitable place, getting engrossed in an entirely other world is captivating, drinking in its bizarre culture and esoteric lore. Todd Howard saw Lord of the Rings and thought “sick, we’ll do that.” That is Oblivion.

We can talk about the gameplay, we both know about that. The level scaling, turning every encounter into something unkillable, the annoyingly precise stat allocation required on your character, “ah the clunkiness, can’t stand the clunkiness.” Mechanics probably won’t be what sucks you in, so what would be the draw?

The freedom! That’s what Bethesdaslop lovers crave. It’s the freedom to do anything you want and damn the consequences. Oblivion’s waltz out of the tutorial gate and seeing the beautiful countryside in the distance, the shimmering lake beckoning you to take a dive, the bone white ruins of Vilverin usher you into its mystery. Seeing that mountain, wondering if you could climb it (not yet). Its immediate offer of ‘go anywhere, do anything’ further cemented the future design doctrine of all Bethesda games. But are you really free? I mean, really? It’s not much of a roleplaying game, all things considered. It hardly lends itself to such a task. Oh, we’re not doing very well here, are we?

Okay, well. The writing is talked up a lot, but it really isn’t that good. Better than Skyrim, sure, but that’s hardly a feat. The Dark Brotherhood questline is held up as the golden standard- but even that doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny- and the main quest is often outright ignored, so that can’t be a good sign. What the fuck is it then?

Why is Oblivion still adored by so many? Why is it one of my favourite games of all time? A damned near obsession of mine, some would say. For most, the answer is simple. Your first Bethesda game tends to be your favourite, such was the case for me. How would I put it? It’s kind of anecdotal, really, but let me try to explain:

Wandering into the basement of a random house, seeing corpses and blood strewn around everywhere, turning around and seeing the homeowner corner you in the darkness, only for him to greet you with, “Good day, how fares you this fine eve?” All while Jeremy Soule is playing his little heart out on the strings. Duh-duh-duh-duhhh-duh-duuuhhh~. There’s a reason Oblivion stands infamous for its lovely potato-faced denizens and awkward, stilted dialogue, but it’s the juxtaposition of their eeriness with such a worldly, standard high-fantasy environment, as the looming threat of actual hell comes to swallow you all. There’s a strange feeling of discomfort the game wraps around you, its stares disarming, the flicker of sheer madness lurking underneath their ungainly smiles. Unnerving, yet alluring all the same.

It’s drenched in this unshakeable charm despite everything visually going against it, something both deeply alien and all too familiar. A world that appears so real at first, then crumbles at the slightest touch of the player character, sometimes without needing your exact input either. And it’s in this place- between the uncanny valley and the scent of mother- that you’ll find Oblivion so strangely homely. My heart is still there, as it has been for over a decade. Wandering the Jerall Mountains, taking in the scenery, skittering just out of sight, eating your sweetrolls, gestating, taking form, lurking. Always lurking.

Constructing demented murder scenes and imagining the horrified responses of those that would discover it covered a great deal of my 300-something hours on the Playstation 3. A gleeful, slightly worrying past-time of tiny crows that now very big crows is actively writing long-winded, melodramatic fanfiction about to this day. Weird how things turn out, eh?

It’s almost impossible to describe. Oblivion is paradoxical in nature, a crawling mass of contradictions. Like a riddle, or a bad joke. But for all of its many faults and eccentricities- it all melts away every time the sun sets on the Colovian Highlands and I hear the Peace of Akatosh for what must be the billionth time. Those rolling green hills and towering trees, that whistle in the wind and the funny, impish creatures spattered around takes me all the way back to my first time touching the game all those many, many years ago. And it’s in these great hills where I shall make my grave.