The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Player Continues Bethesda Tradition and Spends 7 Hours Lining Up Books for In-Game Dominoes

Veteran Oblivion fans might remember Domino Days, during which players would use the game’s physics system to create a chain reaction of falling objects. It went on to become a Bethesda tradition that was continued with 2023’s Starfield and its more advanced physics.

Now, with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, that tradition lives on, with one player spending seven hours lining up books to get the Dominoes chain reaction just right.

Redditor Muaxh03 uploaded the video below showing their work. We see the books slowly fall and knock the following book in a satisfying fashion.

Muaxh03 said they did not use mods to place the books, rather placed them one by one, which sounds particularly grueling. They admit to spawning the books, however. The entire process took seven hours.

“… almost every time I loaded the save something broke, it was not reliable so yes I had to deal with books falling or glitching most of the time, that’s why you can see some desynchronizing on the books, some fall slower or faster,” Muaxh03 explained.

NPCs were disabled, of course: “I would lose my mind if there was NPCs walking around,” Muaxh03 said.

While this effort is a good start for Oblivion Remastered Dominoes, previous efforts in past Bethesda games were more elaborate and involved varied objects. But playing around with books in Oblivion, even Oblivion Remastered, is a lot harder than you might think because you can’t rotate and place objects in Oblivion in the same way you can in Starfield or Skyrim.

“I spent the first 1-2 hours trying to learn how to place them good, after that the stairs took 2-3 hours because every time I tested it, it gave me different results, every time I loaded the save something broke,” Muaxh03 said.

Reaction from Oblivion players has been universally positive, with a mix of disbelief at the time, effort, and patience that went into placing the books so precisely in a game as fiddly as Oblivion.

What next? “Cool now fill a bookcase!” joked one player. “I would sooner fight a god in hand-to-hand combat unarmed. Last time I tried to put a book back the whole room ended up in shambles — SHAMBLES!”

Oblivion Remastered, developed by remake specialist Virtuos using Unreal Engine 5, has a long list of visual and feature improvements. It runs at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second, as you’d expect, but other changes are more meaningful. Everything from the leveling systems to character creation, and combat animations to in-game menus have been improved. Meanwhile, there’s lots of new dialogue, a proper third-person view, and new lip sync technology. The changes are going down well with fans, some of whom believe Oblivion Remastered would be more accurately described as a remake. Bethesda, however, has explained why it went down the remaster route.

Now the game is out in the wild, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered players are warning newcomers to do Kvatch before the level scaling makes it an absolute nightmare. We’ve also got a report on a player who managed to escape the confines of Cyrodiil to explore Valenwood, Skyrim, and even Hammerfell, the rumored setting of The Elder Scrolls VI.

And be sure to check out our comprehensive guide to everything you’ll find in Oblivion Remastered, including an expansive Interactive Map, complete Walkthroughs for the Main Questline and every Guild Quest, How to Build the Perfect Character, Things to Do First, every PC Cheat Code, and much more.

Image credit: Muaxh03 / reddit.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.