Oblivion Remastered sails past 120,000 concurrent players on Steam just a few hours after launch

Well, it’s a hit: Just a couple hours after it went live, Oblivion Remastered is grinding its way up Steam’s most played list, and has now surpassed more than 120,000 concurrent players on the platform.

We knew there was a lot of excitement for Oblivion Remastered, which hungry Elder Scrolls fans have been clamoring for since its existence was first leaked in 2023. But whether that would translate into sales was another question entirely, especially given the game’s $50 price tag—$60 if you want the new horse armor—and its presence on Game Pass. By all appearances the remastered edition is a major rework but even so, it’s a 19-year-old RPG at its core, one an awful lot of us have already played to death.

Consider the question answered. At this moment more than 120,000 people are playing Oblivion Remastered on Steam alone, good enough for 9th place on Steam’s most-played list and within spitting distance of—gasp!—the great Baldur’s Gate 3. Given how it’s been going—the concurrent player count was a little over 102,000 when I started writing this—that number will also certainly have gone up by the time you read this.

That also crushes the all-time peak concurrent player count of Skyrim Special Edition, previously the “newest” Elder Scrolls game, which SteamDB says topped out at 69,906 concurrent players on Steam back in 2016.

Oblivion Remaster vs Skyrim Special Edition peak concurrent player comparison on Steam — (Image credit: SteamDB)

It pains me to admit it, but a lot of the people currently immersing themselves in Uriel Septim’s shenanigans are very likely doing so for the first time: People who weren’t even born when Oblivion originally arrived in 2006 are now entering college, and for them the remaster represents an opportunity to see what all the fuss is about without having to deal with the headaches of running old games on new hardware, and graphics and gameplay systems that are, to put it politely, dated.

Bethesda alluded to that new audience in a message posted to Bluesky. “We know many of our longtime fans will be thrilled to revisit Oblivion and the land of Cyrodiil,” the studio wrote. “But there are also many who have never played it.

“We can’t thank you enough for all the support you have given us and our games over the years. Our hope with this remaster is that no matter who you are, when you step out of the Imperial sewer—you feel like you’re experiencing it for the first time.”

It’s been thrilling for all of us here at Bethesda to revisit a game so close to our hearts with Oblivion Remastered. When we started this project in 2021, we aimed to breathe new life into a chapter of The Elder Scrolls that set the path for so many of our games after it. We never wanted to remake it – but remaster it – where the original game was there as you remember playing it, but seen through today’s technology. We were so fortunate to work with an unbelievable team and partners at Virtuos. Even though we had worked together before, we had never attempted something on this scale. Every piece of art, animation, special effects, and part of the world would be remastered. Some new voices would be recorded, while keeping the originals there as well. Game systems were updated to feel better in your hands. Leveling systems modified for smoother progression and balance. We looked at every part and carefully upgraded it. But most of all, we never wanted to change the core. It’s still a game from a previous era and should feel like one. We know many of our longtime fans will be thrilled to revisit Oblivion and the land of Cyrodiil. But there are also so many who have never played it. We can’t thank you enough for all the support you have given us and our games over the years. Our hope with this remaster is, that no matter who you are, when you step out of the Imperial sewer - you feel like you’re experiencing it for the first time. We can’t wait to hear about your adventures. All our best, Bethesda Game Studios — (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks (Bluesky))

I’m not a huge fan of Oblivion myself—it’s good, just not that good—but even I have to admit that its “step out moment,” to use Todd Howard’s term, is one of the best of any Bethesda game: The sensation of emerging into a wide-open fantasy world, with nothing ahead but freedom and adventure, is genuinely peak Elder Scrolls.

Bear in mind that this big number only applies to Steam: It does not account for players on consoles—Oblivion Remastered is also available on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5—or those who pick it up on the Windows Store, and it’s also available on Game Pass. It’s also relatively early in the day for gamers in North America, many of whom won’t be able to dive in until they’re home from work or school. I stand by my prediction that the thrill will fade fairly quickly—it is a 19-year-old videogame, after all, and not the best of the series—but right now I also predict that number is going to keep going up for a good while yet.