You don’t need an Oblivion Remaster, you need Boblivion, the mod that makes Oblivion Bob

It’s Oblivion time, folks. No, March 20—Oblivion’s original release date. No, not one of those weekends where I wake up and stare at the ceiling for three hours, either. It’s finally time for the much-anticipated and maddening The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster, which was leaked and rumoured for so long that it was starting to drive fans off the rails.

But who cares? Well, me. I care. I was literally liveblogging about the remaster’s release yesterday. But I shouldn’t. Because I don’t really need Oblivion Remastered. What I need is Boblivion, a project I struggle to translate into words and yet translate into powerful feelings unconsciously.

From visionary artist assman3000, Boblivion is a mod for OG Oblivion that “changes literally every single thing in the base game to ‘Bob’ literally everything, well, 99% of everything.” Although I’m slightly disconcerted by assman’s narrative crumbling under zero external pressure, I’m still impressed/amused by the whole effort. It really does change all things to Bob. Main menu items? Bob. Pause menu items? Bob. Bar menu items? Wall to wall Bob, my friend. Every cheesewheel, every sword, every misaimed arrow: it’s all Bob as far as the eye can see.

Which is a very stupid joke in a tradition of stupid jokes I can’t help but admire. But what I really like about Boblivion is its willingness to commit to the bit to an invisible-yet-game-breaking degree. Our author delved into the Oblivion Creation Kit sufficiently to even rename all the game’s races to, well, you know. “This breaks dialogue though, because all races are now Bob. But you can still talk to people telepathically. Although all they have to say is ‘Bob’.” Which makes sense, given the nature of the project at hand.

It’s a dumb, throwaway gag that I have likely already dedicated more thought to than it strictly deserves, but here’s some more thinking: I love this. Not because I think the joke is gut-bustingly hilarious, but because it’s the kind of weird, baffling, meta outgrowth that comes when you leave a community to tinker with a game—right down to the fundamentals—for 19 years.

It’s like a plant that’s been left in one pot too long: mutated and strange and kind of wonderful. It’s the kind of thing I’m excited to see develop around this new, shinier Oblivion. Which means it’s also the kind of thing that will keep OG Oblivion relevant even with its jazzed-up successor on the scene.