OG Oblivion designer thought the remaster was just ‘a texture update’ until he laid eyes on it, and now he thinks we need a new word to describe it

The remaster of Oblivion is here and I’m running out of ways to start news articles with variations of ‘the remaster of Oblivion is here.’ So here’s a Young Scrolls music video made out of male Bosmer voice clips and the Adoring Fan’s model.

Anyway, it’s not just rabble like you and me that are wowed by the work Bethesda and Virtuos put into this shinier, newer, 2025-ier version of Cyrodiil. Oblivion designer (plus Shivering Isles design director and Skyrim lead designer) Bruce Nesmith, who left Bethesda during the development of Starfield, has also laid eyes on the remaster, and he’s blown away.

In a chat with Videogamer, Nesmith tipped his hat to the game’s devs and “a staggering amount of remastering. It almost needs its own word, quite frankly. I’m not sure ‘remaster’ actually does it justice.”

Nesmith’s amazed that the remaster touched “every part of the game,” taking the time to “completely redo the animations, the animation system, put in the Unreal Engine, change the leveling system, [and] change the user interface.” But before he saw it, Nesmith thought the re-do was going to be a pretty simple upscale.

“I was assuming this was going to be a texture update,” he said, “I didn’t really think it was going to be the complete overhaul they’ve announced it to be.” Now, he thinks the best way to describe the game is as “Oblivion 2.0.”

Who can blame him? The term ‘remaster’—at least for me—conjures images of uprezzes and sharper textures, not the complete UE5 renovation that Virtuos created for Oblivion. It really is a remaster though; dig into those game files and you’ll find most of the files for the original game, wrapped in UE5 like a fly in amber.

If you’re wondering how Nesmith feels about it, he’s got one word for you: “pride.” He says he’s proud that “A game that I worked on has the longevity to still generate interest 20 years later and to be worth the effort—it sounds like considerable effort—and time that Bethesda put into remastering it.

“There’s precious few people in our industry who can say they’ve been part of something like that.”