Ultra-faithful Oblivion Remastered inexplicably fouls up a key bit of Dark Brotherhood lore with a gussied-up door texture

They're, uh, adopted.

If there’s a single word you can use to describe Oblivion Remastered, it’s ‘faithful’. The secret glitched door that lets you skip the game? Still there. The voice acting flubs? Preserved for eternity. Its horrible levelled loot system? Untouched (except by modders).

It’s all just as you remember it except everyone is ugly in 4K now, so imagine my surprise when attentive Reddit users noticed it had—for no apparent reason—mucked up a crucial bit of the Dark Brotherhood’s background lore with a new fancy door texture on the faction’s Cheydinhal sanctuary entrance.

You almost certainly know this door. It’s the one that asks you “What is the colour of night?” when you first show up to join the Brotherhood’s merry band of serial slaughterers. In original Oblivion, it was emblazoned with a relief that showed an episode from Dark Brotherhood history: the Night Mother murdering the five children that she conceived with Sithis—the deification of chaos, change, and the void that the Dark Brotherhood worships (and whom its members won’t stop banging on about).

It’s this event that really peeved off her neighbours, leading them to kill her and turn her into the sinister, whispery, and immortal Night Mother—eternal leader of the Brotherhood as a whole—that we all know and love.

That same relief is there in New-blivion, but there’s been a bizarre and unexplained change: the Night Mother now has two extra kids. Where the original had her brandishing a knife at four of her offspring while cradling a fifth in her arms, there are now six doomed bairns standing, plus the one she’s carrying. You can see a comparison between the OG and the new sanctuary door below.

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The original entrance to the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary from Oblivion, showing the Night Mother and five children. — The sanctuary door in original Oblivion, featuring five kids and one bad mother. (Image credit: Bethesda / Jimeee via UESP)

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The Dark Brotherhood sanctuary door from Oblivion Remastered, showing the Night Mother and seven children. — The door from the remaster, where old Night Mum has somehow gained an additional two wee’uns. (Image credit: Bethesda)

Where did these new children come from? What do they represent? Are they just some pals from school who chose a real bad night to have a sleep-over? These are the questions I am left with.

Well, not the only questions. I’m curious as to how slip-ups like this happen, given that the devs were doubtlessly working off the original door as a reference. Maybe something about the original layout didn’t quite work at a higher resolution, or didn’t appeal to a particular artist’s sensibilities? Maybe someone at Virtuos was just really tired and miscounted. I’ve been there.

Anyway, I’ve reached out to Bethesda to ask if this is an intentional retcon to existing Elder Scrolls lore or if this is just a rare example of a slip-up on the part of the remaster, and I’ll update if I hear back.

As an aside, I’ve gotta echo Reddit’s complaints about the door losing a lot of its ambience in the remaster. The foreboding red glow of the original was iconic, and I only hope that Virtuos and Bethesda restore it in a future patch for the re-do.