Thank Todd: The Oblivion remaster is here and you can play it right now

Did you clap your hands? Say your prayers? Remember to drink your Ovaltine? You must have done, because Bethesda’s only gone and shadowdropped the Oblivion remaster the exact same day it officially revealed the dang thing, just as prophecy foretold.

Not that the reveal was a surprise, mind you. The existence of an Oblivion remaster has been the worst-kept secret in videogames ever since a court document splashed the goss across the front pages back in September 2023. Of course, that document—a leaked Microsoft presentation—had the game down as releasing in fiscal year 2022, which is, hang on, let me work it out, before the likes of you and me got our mitts on it, so it was anyone’s guess as to whether it had been cancelled or not, or whether it ever really existed at all.

That is, until rumours and supposed leaks began to circulate in the last few months that the game was due an imminent announcement and release. Rumours and leaks that kept repeating themselves with increasing volume and frequency, driving poor, benighted Oblivion fans to the brink of Silksong-style madness in their zeal for just a crumb of actual, solid info.

But wily Todd Howard kept his powder dry. Until today. We didn’t just get a crumb of info, we got a whole loaf: the Oblivion remaster is here and it costs $50 (£50), and it’s out on Game Pass too. The look we got at it during its reveal sure makes me curious to get a go at the full thing. It’s all shiny and uprezzed, yes, and honestly looks more like the kind of thing you’d ordinarily call a ‘remake’ rather than a ‘remaster,’ but I’m mostly eager to know if the polish-up has left Oblivion’s absurd, beating heart intact. Bethesda and Virtuos suggest it has, but I need to find out for myself.

Because say what you like about it (and as a Morrowind stalwart, I will), but Oblivion is the funniest game Bethesda ever released. Possibly one of the funniest games of all time. The precise combination of Bethesda’s ambitions with the limits of the technology of 2006 made for a game that was constantly, brilliantly weird—funny enough that its unmatched comic timing is still enough to go viral nearly two decades after it first came out. If two people don’t have a banal conversation while one of them slowly burns to death in lava in this thing, I’m calling the whole remaster a failure.

You can find the The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered on Steam.