Oblivion’s gloriously exploitable magic is even more busted in the remaster, letting one player turn into a high-speed leap wizard who can cross Cyrodiil in seconds

Over on Reddit, an Oblivion Remastered player going by the name of purpleturtlehurtler claims to have found the perfect balance of speed and fun. In a 90-second video, their high elven mage (with a custom class called “Master Blaster”) leaps from a frozen mountainside, flies through the air to land near the sunny Imperial City, then hops across the water of the Niben without seeming to lose any velocity. It’s all done without console commands or mods, or even drinking skooma for that sweet buff to your speed stat.

In the early Elder Scrolls games, being able to craft your own spells and magic items led to some powerfully broken combinations. What purpleturtlehurtler is taking advantage of here is the fact that, while spells that fortify your attributes don’t normally stack their bonuses in Oblivion, they do if you craft spells with the same effects but different names.

I think I found the perfect balance of speed and fun. from r/oblivion

The process, which probably takes as long as the video itself to implement, involves casting multiple spells that buff intelligence, willpower, and magicka just to give yourself enough points to be able to cast the subsequent spells that buff acrobatics, speed, and athletics. With at least 75 points in acrobatics you unlock the mastery perk, which lets you jump across water. The elven mage seen in purpleturtlehurtler’s video has an acrobatics score that’s been boosted by 475 points, and probably started at 100.

In the original Oblivion there was a cap of 255 on your attributes and skills, thanks to the Gamebryo engine’s 32-bit architecture. Oblivion Remastered doesn’t have that limit. In fact, it doesn’t seem to have any limits on your stats, and given that it calculates your jump height by adding your acrobatics skill, I look forward to seeing someone finally master Icarian Flight and leap straight into the sun.