I first played The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion shortly after it's original release all the way back in 2006. At the time I was around 9 or 10 which largely contributed to me playing the opening segment, getting into the open world of Cyrodil being hopelessly lost.

I put it down.

Not to be picked up again until after the release and 100+ hour playthroughs of Skyrim in 2011. This time I made it a lot further, finished the game and enjoying the story but finding the controls and systems (not to mention the visuals) difficult compared to Skyrim's. Now almost 20 years since the original release and almost 15 years since I last played it, Oblivion has reared it's head in the form of a remaster. I decided it was worth another go, but what I've found is that I like a lot of Oblivion, more so than ever before; but there's a lot I don't like, let me explain.

I'm going to start with the positives. As it's what I've been playing recently I'll be focussing on my experience of the remaster and not the original but my criticisms still apply there too. Let's get started.

The World

I love the world. Cyrodil is beautiful to explore. From the moment you exit the sewers after the dramatic assassination of the emperor (Patrick Stewart's voice acting is simply superb) you're thrust into the open world with a single goal but no requirement on how you there. You can see the hills and mountains in the distance, a jetty heading out towards a huge lake. It's simply magnificent to behold. In the remaster there's a merciful lack of bloom on everything and you really feel like you;re expliring a living world. Whichever direction you choose you;re sure to find something of interest to see, whether it be a cave, shrine or village off in the distance. I had fun walking, just following the roads and taking in the scenery, feeling like I was part of this bigger ecosystem. But this is where the crack in the game design, and how the world is crafted, begin to show.

Now, I want to preface this with the knowledge that I understand that this game originally came out in 2006 so there are technical constraints to consider, particularly where the only major change is a face-lift to the visuals, but I think this still bares mentioning.

Unfortunately the world feels empty. I know this sounds contradictory but those caves and tombs I was mentioning earlier; they have bandits and Imps in them, but why? Why are the bandits there? Were they driven into hiding by Imperial patrols? Have they always been there and have turned the cave system into a more hospitable home? I ask these questions because I feel that they're interesting. They're what makes a game interesting. "Why?" is such an important question. In most instances, you as the player enter a cave, kill everything that moves, find a chest at the bottom with a lockpick and 12 gold and then you backtrack out again.

There's no context for why anyone's there. No stakes for the player. You just murdered your way through 10 people simply because they're bandits and the games says "enemy". Hypothetically, what if you found a note, a single note in the chest at the end of the cave saying they'd been forced out of their jobs working on a farm and are hiding in these caves robbing passersby to earn enough money to feed themselves? It would have 2 effects.

1. It would make you question the senseless violence you just enacted, killing all these people without a second thought.
2. It explains why they're there.

And this brings me back to the world. These experiences don't actually do anything for the player. They're filler designed to make the world feel more full than it actually is. I want to feel like I've achieved something. That there's a reason for the exploration. There doesn't need to be a reward (though sometimes a cool weapon or spell book is nice) but I want there to feel like there's something. Even just a reason for these people to be here.

Another example was a fort of necromancers. I was exploring outside when two of them attacked me; I barely defeated them and was curious. "Why has they attacked me? Are they guarding something? Maybe they're trying to stop nosy Khajits interrupting them summoning an army of the dead!?" But I never found out. I traveled through this dungeon, sneaking around, fighting necromancers and zombies and avoiding the forts traps before I made it to the central chamber with the final necromancers. I fight them and win. But for what? They're not there for any reason other than the game needs them to be. There's no story, no context, no reason. No failed experiments to raise an army of the dead. No misguided attempts to bring a loved one back from the grave. Nothing. It's a shame. You have this world that on the surface seems vast. But like a massive puddle, it's shallow. it's just the surface and a small bit underneath reserved for the main quest and side quests and that's all.

The Story

Speaking of the main quest, I love it. The emperor is killed right in-front of you. Before that he hands you a sacred amulet and tells you to find his illegitimate son and stop an invasion of Tamriel by one of the seventeen princes of Oblivion. The line "And close shut the doors... of Oblivion" still gives me chills. It's so cool! Again, well done to Patrick Stewart for making the emperor such a standout character, even though he's only in it for 20 minutes. And this plot expands on the world, sets the stakes and makes you want to travel out into this world. A few hours later you've tracked down Martin Septim, the emperors son but the city he lives in is being overrun by daedre, hell bent on finding and killing him. You arrive at the city in the aftermath of the attack, an enormous gate to Oblivion itself towering before you. You singlehandedly close the gate, stopping the invasion and enter the city. This whole segment is really exciting and you feel the weight and importance of this moment.

And then you meet Martin. Which is where I started to notice the issues with the main plot. Remember, at this point you're this unknown prisoner who, whilst having done the seemingly impossible and closed an Oblivion gate, tells a priest who never once considered he was the emperors 18th cousin, 12 times removed, let alone his son and says "come with me" adn the priest just says "sure". What?! Now admittedly Martin does question you initially but it's literally impossible to not convince him. There's never a point at which he thinks "you know what? This all seems rather far-fetched. You're a talking cat covered in blood with a sack of 6 daedre hearts and god knows what else. I think I'll pass." And I understand that he needs to be around to complete the main quest but it could be that this is a speech check and if you fail you have to convince him he need a sign from Akatosh (likely in the form of a quest) that convinces him. I'm not saying that it needs ot be branching, that there should be another backup son incase this one doesn't work out byt it just makes it feel like the story is going to happen how it's been decided whether you like it or not. You don't have a say and your actions have no consequence.

Martin doesn't even care about the city after you speak to him. He's ready to go, there's no word from him on "I may be there emperor's son but these people are still my congregation and I won't leave them behind while the city is still under siege.". You can just leave, and the fate of the city and it's people are relegated to a side quest. He doesn't feel like a real person. Sean Bean does an excellent job of trying to make Martin seem like a cohesive character. He really portrays the sense of bewilderment, the daunting responsibility and how out of place he feels in his new role as emperor. But he doesn't feel like a person. Once again he serves the plot. And anything going against that isn't allowed. It;s the illusion of choice. The illusion that the characters and even you as the player have any hope of influencing the events unfolding.

There's another moment later where you need to acquire 4 books that will point you to where the deadric cult that murdered the emperor, "The Mythic Dawn", are hiding so you can learn their plans. You find the first 2 books and upon visiting a purveyor of rare books, track down someone buying the third. You ask them to hand over the book and after some back and forth where-in they tell you the fourth book can only be acquired from a moment of the order themselves; they still refuse. Until you tell them the order are responsible for killing the emperor. Then he hands over the nook and a letter detailing his meeting with the order to acquire the final book. But again this doesn't make sense. This guy is nuts for daedric cults. He even boasts how he met Sheogorath under the full moon. He's clearly into the whole daedric thing. So why would he believe you when you tell him this cult killed the emperor? Who are you to him? It just doesn't make sense to me. And again there's no way to fail this. There's no alternate route where you don't convince him and have to follow him after dark to the secret meeting. Watch it unfold and then steal the books afterwards. Oh no, that would mean you the player don't get to the meet the cult supporters.

Some Final Thoughts

The thing is I love this world and this story. It's just that part of me wants to feel like I have a say in how the story progresses. That the choices I make have stakes and consequences. That the places I explore in the world have a reason to be other than the map looks a bit empty in that corner.

I'm not asking for big branching paths where you can join the deadric cult and help bring about the end of the world. Some stories require that you are the hero. I know that. But when a game is teasing you and shows the glimpses of what it can be, it's hard not to want more from it.

I won't explore it here but Fallout: New Vegas is a perfect example of how you can have the beats of a story remain similar but how you get there can be so different player to player. This be an unfair comparison, New Vegas is a masterpiece, but even a simpler RPG like Avowed manages to make the decisions you make feel weighty and consequential; so much so that I questioned the ending I ended up with and whether what I did was right or not.

Perhaps the issue is that things have moved on since 2006 and I'm comparing it to what RPGs are now, and not what they were. I like Oblivion. But I feel like I'm constantly left wanting more form a game that promises so much and delivers so little.