Oblivion:Remastered Changes

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Oblivion Remastered features extensive changes from the original release of Oblivion, ranging from the game's presentation, to gameplay adjustments, to technical changes under the hood. Certain bugs from classic Oblivion have been fixed, but new bugs have also been introduced with this release.

This page documents many of these changes, however certain types of differences can be found detailed on their own pages:

• Combat changes
• Leveling system changes
• Quest changes

Bugs Fixed

• The Mace of Molag Bal's Absorb Strength enchantment now lasts 10 seconds instead of 0.
• Scroll duplication glitch can no longer be performed.
• Paint Brushes are now affected by gravity.
• The Fighter's Stronghold download no longer causes the Mystic Emporium to become locked during the daytime.
• Learning a spell from a spell tome no longer plays the sound of casting that spell.
• The painting of Charrus Valga will now appear in Countess Arriana Valga's private chamber if Canvas the Castle is completed by turning in the correct culprit.
• Hil the Tall is now correctly an Alteration trainer instead of Illusion, which matches the NPC dialogue.
• The Weaponbane Cuirass no longer occupies the tail equipment slot.
• The Mountaineer's Shield no longer occupies the tail equipment slot.
• The Base Ring of Steelskin now has a Resist Normal Weapons enchantment like the other Steelskin rings.
• The leveled effects of the Mind and Body Ring are now assigned in the conventional order.
• The leveled effects of the Amulet of Interrogation are now assigned in the conventional order.
• Namira's Daedric Quest now correctly awards a Fame point upon successful completion.
• Erandur-Vangaril now correctly scales with your level, and is no longer invincible and non-interactable when encountered at lower levels.
• Items can no longer be repaired over 100% durability by using a custom spell to fortify Armorer by 100pts for 1sec.
• The Spectre Ring is now correctly owned and purchasable from Hamlof Red-Tooth.
• Nerveshatter now correctly applies weakness to shock damage.
• Affairs of a Wizard now correctly awards an Infamy point.
• The Bloodworm Helm's Essence Drain spell now correctly levels with the item level.
• The Oghma Infinium's Path of Spirit now correctly increases Willpower.

• The Necromancer's Amulet now scales to the player instead of Caranya.

Bugs Introduced

• Crafting potions too quickly may crash the game.
• Casting Light spells does not work in first-person view. You must go into third-person view for the light effect to appear.
• As storage containers now have opening and closing animations with physics, items placed on top of desks may sometimes fly off when the desk is activated.
• As doors are now animated when opening them and do not have anything to obscure the view beyond them, it's possible to see below terrain or inside of buildings in some situations.
• The tails of Khajiit and Argonians disappear when wearing a robe, dress, Steel Cuirass, Dwarven Cuirass, or the Madness Cuirass.
• Some race models will display with missing shoulder meshes on their character models during character creation.
• Goblin corpses no longer react when hit in the head with a weapon.
• Tripwire traps can no longer be triggered by striking them with an arrow, but will interact with arrow physics after being triggered.
• Player character models are the same height for all races. Mounting a horse with no equipment equipped triggers the 1st person and 3rd person character model to fix itself for the players correct race. Upon loading into the game the bug will trigger itself until a horse is remounted.
• During The Battle for Castle Kvatch, Savlian Matius may get stuck outside the castle door repeating the same dialogue when spoken to. This can be worked around by proceeding into Castle Kvatch alone and continuing with the quest until you find the corpse of Ormellius Goldwine. Upon finding his body, the quest will update, and Savlian can be engaged with in dialogue as normal.
• In The Killing Field, a wave of Goblins far larger than intended for your level may appear, making the quest very difficult. Reloading a save prior to the battle will cause the appropriate amount of Goblins to appear.
• J'skar is not invisible during the Bruma Recommendation quest.
• If you are affected by the poison gas in the Ayleid ruin Arpenia, encountered during the Fighter's Guild quest Azani Blackheart, you will permanently take poison damage even after leaving the area. This can be resolved by saving and reloading the game.
• In certain situations, dart traps can damage you regardless of their distance from the trap. You will continue to take damage until you die.
• Using the Skull of Corruption does not clone the target's worn equipment. Only the target's weapon is duplicated.
• Occasionally you can be stuck in a state where items will be dropped when trying to equip them. This can be resolved by closing and relaunching the game.
• The moons are visible through trees on overcast nights.
• The notification that the game has been saved occasionally does not display.
• Stealth marksman attacks sometimes deal only x1 damage, even when you have the Sneak skill perks to increase this.
• If you go to sleep and level up while the subject of a Chameleon effect, the Chameleon visual effect may become stuck. When this happens, your eyes also glitch such that the eye sockets appear black. It is unclear whether the mechanical effects also persist or whether the glitch is solely visual.
• Character may appear unarmed within the menus and during leveling up, even if weapons are actually equipped in-game. Unequipping and re-equipping the weapons will make them reappear on the model.
• PC only: The full interface (aside from the console) may disappear entirely when the game window is unfocused.
• PC only: Changing too many graphics settings in a single session can cause severe graphical issues with the game, requiring the game to be closed and relaunched. This usually results in lighting errors, and giant character models to appear floating in the sky.
• Greywyn's Armoire is not a safe storage and resets every couple of seconds.
• Oblivion gates may appear before the Kvatch questline is completed, though sometimes only the map marker will appear. The gates are often bugged as well, reloading the area or entering and exiting a gate will often make them disappear.
• Wielding a torch will cause the player character to display all currently equipped items in the left hand slot when drawing your weapon.(i.e. having a bow and shield equipped but sheathed, then equipping a torch and unsheathing your weapon will show the shield and bow models both in the left hand). This will persist until the camera changes(i.e. switching to 3rd person, opening the menu).
• Instantly dying when picking up a Sigil stone from an Oblivion gate.
• Knights of Order have hair.
• Corpses raised using the Great Power "Risen Flesh" are stuck in a ragdoll state and can't move.
• Reaching 50 Armorer shows a message saying you have reached Apprentice, rather than Journeyman, skill level.
• Spell Making Altar (Only in Frostcrag Spire?) allows spells to be created when the player does not have the proper skill level in certain circumstances. ^{[verification needed — see talk page]}
• During Umaril the Unfeathered, at the beginning of the aerial sequence above the Imperial City, up to at least 3 additional Umarils may spawn in addition to the intended 1. As with The Killing Field, dying and reloading from a save appears to resolve the issue.
• Vicente Valtieri is sometimes bald (instead of having his usual ponytail).

Gameplay

Character Creation

• References to gender have been removed from Character Creation, with Female and Male body types having been renamed to "Type 1" and "Type 2", respectively.
  • The stats that were formerly determined by gender are now assigned through choosing a location Origin for a character, the options of which differ for each race. The left-hand option reflects the male stats in classic Oblivion, while the right-hand option reflects the female stats.
  • In-game dialogue still uses gendered pronouns and forms of address (sire, ma'am) depending on the selected body type, as in classic Oblivion.
• Characters can now have facial hair, with a wide variety of styles available. Additionally, many NPCs in the game now sport facial hair.
• Many new eye, hair, and skin/makeup/hair tone options have been added. All eye options are now available to all races.
• Every NPC face in the game has been redesigned. Some remain visually faithful to their original appearance, while others have been radically changed, no longer resembling their look in classic Oblivion.

General

• Achievements are available for PC and PlayStation players to earn for the first time. Using console commands will disable the ability to earn achievements, and affected save files are indicated with a broken trophy icon.
• You can now move slowly while over-encumbered, just like in Skyrim, instead of being frozen in place. As in Skyrim, you are unable to run, sprint, or jump while over-encumbered. You also cannot dodge, power attack, shield bash, or fast travel.
• All downloadable content from classic Oblivion is enabled by default, with no ability to disable them outside of modding. As a consequence, some content only present without the DLCs is inaccessible.
  • This includes unique dialogue with Dumania Jirich, Laralthir and Trevaia, who in classic Oblivion are all killed once Knights of the Nine is enabled.
• Third-person view has been reworked. The camera now sits over your shoulder, and you can now move independently of the camera's direction.
• First-person view while riding a horse has been removed. You are always viewed in third-person while riding, similar to Skyrim.
• A new Help menu has been added, with guidance on a wide range of topics explaining the game's different mechanics.
• Harvestables can no longer fail to harvest ingredients. They also now visually change or vanish to reflect being harvested.
• Smaller harvestables now have activator volumes, giving them a large hitbox to interact with instead of requiring precise positioning of the cursor.

Settings

• The main menu now separates save files by character.
  • Note that the name used is the one set at the very beginning of the game. If a save file before exiting the sewers is used to effectively create a new character, they will be classed as the same character under the original name.
• It is now possible to create a Quick Save from a new option in the Save/Load menu, in addition to using the existing hotkey.
• A new setting has been added to enable or disable autosave on loading screens, consistent with modern Bethesda Game Studio releases. The game also now has 5 autosave slots per character.
• For the first time, FOV (field of view) can be modified in the game's Graphics settings.
• Difficulty is now set with fixed tiers, like in Skyrim, instead of as a sliding scale. The available options are Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master, matching the ranks used for skills and difficulty options in Skyrim.

Locations

• The door in Unmarked Cave that required a non-existent key has been changed to have a Very Easy lock, making the dungeon now legitimately explorable. Unfinished portions of the dungeon have been completed.
• Beldaburo and Mingo Cave are modified in the Deluxe Edition for use in the quests for the exclusive items.

NPCs

• NPCs can now repeat their unique initial greetings when engaged in dialogue.
• Several greetings that were unused or rarely used in classic Oblivion can now be heard more prominently.
• Ranaline is now a Dark Elf, not a High Elf.
• Rena Bruiant's dogs Bailey and Kezune now have distinct fur coats, instead of the standard dog appearance. Bailey is now pure brown, and Kezune now is pure white.

Vampirism

• Vampire appearance is redesigned so instead of the aged and wrinkled appearance of classic Oblivion, your face remains structurally the same with slight alterations such as different eye color in the case of Argonian, Khajiit, and Orc vampires, dark circles under the eyes, and a pale and gaunt appearance. Unlike in classic Oblivion, brows and cheekbones are not pronounced, and there is no difference in appearance regardless of vampire stage. Attribute bonuses and weaknesses remain the same.
• The vampire eye color from classic Oblivion is available as one of the many eye options in character creation.

Calculations

• Increases to max magicka by means of fortify spells or equipment (fortify intelligence, fortify magicka) no longer indirectly increase magicka regained/sec.
• The Max Fatigue formula has changed. Strength and Endurance does not modify Max Fatigue, while Agility modify it slightly (About 1.4 per point? Needs verification.), and Willpower modify it greatly (About 2.4 per point? Needs verification.).

Interface

HUD

• The game features a redesigned HUD, resembling the layout used in Skyrim. Vitals (Health, Magicka, and Fatigue bars) are laid out across the bottom of the screen and are now only visible when these stats are diminished or actively changed. The compass is positioned at the top and center of the display. Your equipped spell and weapon are positioned in the lower-right corner, and active effects are positioned in the lower-left corner.
• Icons appear next to vitals to indicate broken armor or weapons, and when you are over-encumbered.
• A progress bar is now displayed in the upper-right corner of the screen when increasing a skill to denote your progress towards reaching the next level.
• The sneaking icon now functions similarly to Skyrim, with the eye gradually opening or closing to reflect NPC detection.
• The name of a nearby location is now displayed below the compass when looking in its direction, as well as the distance in steps needed to reach it from your current position.
• Similar to Skyrim, entering a location now displays its name in the center of the screen, and discovering a location displays an additional "Discovered" text below the name.
• Map icons can now be filtered to specific types, and each type now has a distinct color to help distinguish between them.
• Items highlighted by the cursor now display a soft white outline.
• Empty containers now display text to indicate they are empty when hovering the cursor over them.
• Loading screens have been completely redesigned and feature new artwork, but in a similar hand-drawn style to classic Oblivion's loading screens.
• Script Effect is now represented with its own icon, instead of using the same icon as Burden.

Menus

• The main menu visual, originally the map of Cyrodiil, has been changed to a scene depicting the Hero of Kvatch in front of a burning Oblivion Gate outside of Kvatch.
• Menus have been redesigned to adapt to modern displays, but retain the same general "journal" aesthetic as classic Oblivion. The yellow background tint is no longer present. The pause menu and journal are now part of a single interface that can be easily navigated between, instead of being entirely separate menus.
• The inventory no longer splits items into subcategories. They are now all grouped together in their parent categories.
• Both your and a merchant/container's inventory can now be viewed at the same time. When opening a container or an NPC's inventory, it is displayed on the left side of the screen, and your inventory can be toggled to open on the right side. When bartering with merchants, your inventory is displayed on the left side of the screen, and the merchant's inventory on the right.
• In the inventory menu, an expanded details panel can be toggled to display to the right of the menu. One tab shows the item's stats, as well as a 3D preview of the item which can be manipulated to inspect it. A second tab appears for magic and alchemy items to display their effects.
• In the inventory menu, you are able to sort items by alphabetical order (default), monetary value, or weight. Weapons can be sorted by damage, armor can be sorted by armor rating, and items with durability can be sorted by this statistic.
• Iconography and artwork in the interface has been redesigned, staying faithful to the original designs. Item icons are the same as classic Oblivion, but have been visually enhanced to improve quality.
• The Active Quests and Current Quests tabs in the journal have been merged into a single Quests tab. The active quest always appears at the top, with a divider separating it from the current quests available to you listed below it.
• The button to access the local map has been removed. The local map is now only accessed by zooming fully into the world map, and is no longer the map view that is shown by default.

Other

• The interface for the Persuasion minigame has been redesigned with distinct colors to denote a character's action preferences. The colors are shown for a character after persuading them for the first time.
• The setting to toggle display of the crosshair on or off has been removed.
• UI text and cursor size can now be adjusted between three different size settings.
• The dialogue camera view is further zoomed out compared to classic Oblivion. A new setting has been added to use the standard camera view instead, functioning similarly to Skyrim. However, unlike that game, all action in the background will still be paused during dialogue regardless of the setting used.
• All text for the Hand to Hand skill is now formatted as "Hand-To-Hand".

Controls

• Menu shortcuts have been added to the D-Pad for controllers.
  • Pressing up opens the Character menu.
  • Pressing left opens the Magic menu.
  • Pressing right opens the Inventory.
  • Pressing down opens the Map.
• Custom map markers on PC are now pinned by simply pressing the right mouse button on a position on the map, instead of holding Shift and pressing the left mouse button.
• Items are now grabbed by holding the assigned Take Item button over it, instead of being a separate button.

Graphics

• Oblivion Remastered uses Unreal Engine 5 for graphics rendering instead of the original Gamebryo engine. The original engine is still used to handle core game logic.
• Most models and textures in the game have been redesigned for the Unreal engine.
  • Most female armor pieces have been redesigned to look more practical and more closely resemble the male versions.
  • The Zombie/corpse model now wears pants.
• A new dynamic lighting system has been implemented.
• Reworked visual effects. New visual effects have been added for combat and magic.
  • Light spells use a new visual effect similar to Skyrim's, with an orb of light floating around you that lights up the surrounding area.
• A new blood splatter effect, a low-health vignette, and camera motion (also known as a "bobbing" effect) have been added. All of these effects can be enabled or disabled in the Gameplay settings menu.
• Distant terrain has been reworked, with surrounding mountains generally being taller and more imposing than in classic Oblivion.
  • The Throat of the World is visible when looking beyond the border between Cyrodiil and Skyrim.
  • The island of Stirk can be seen in the distant Abecean Sea.
  • Various landmasses with ruined Oblivion Gates and keeps can be seen in the distance in Planes of Oblivion.
• LODs have been updated, making certain structures that could not be seen from a distance in classic Oblivion (such as Frostcrag Spire) now always visible from afar.
• An aurora is visible at night above the northern border between Cyrodiil and Skyrim.
• Lip-sync animations for NPC dialogue use an entirely new system.
• New environmental visual effects have been added to enhance locations, such as insects flying around outside, and small fish swimming through water.
• Doors and containers are now visually animated when opening them.
• The visual effect used for the Shade of the Revenant is much more intense, red instead of purple, and is clearly visible from a distance.
• A canvas weave texture is overlayed on the screen and a watercolor filter is applied when inside the Painted World.
• The Bloodworm Helm, the Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw, and Ruin's Edge now possess their unique designs from the Skyrim Creation Club addons.

Audio

• While all of the original voice actors are present, many additional voicetypes have been added. Certain characters have been recast with these new voices, and every race/gender combination now has a unique voicetype.
• Many new sound effects are used in place of the original sounds.
• A new sound effect now plays when discovering a location, similar to one used in Skyrim.
• New environmental sounds, such as birdsong or owl hooting, have been added to enhance the soundscape of locations in the game.
• Voices and sound effects now have acoustics, with reverb and volume being affected by the surrounding environment.
• Sound effects in the lockpicking minigame have been made more distinct to make it easier to tell when a tumbler will set in place.
• A crackling flame sound effect has been added to the main menu to reflect the new key visual.

Technical

• Modding for Oblivion Remastered is not officially supported by Bethesda, however some mods made for classic Oblivion are able to work when used with this game.
  • There is no included mod manager to enable or disable plugins. This consequently also means that official downloads cannot be disabled without editing Plugins.txt.
  • As Unreal Engine 5 is now used for graphics rendering, models and textures are read from PAK files. Model and texture files that are loose or packed in BSAs are ignored. The NIF model format is not compatible.
  • Three new ESP files have been added to handle remaster-exclusive content, and should not be disabled:
    • AltarESPMain.esp
    • AltarDeluxe.esp
    • AltarESPLocal.esp
• The Unreal Engine 5 Console tool replaces classic Oblivion's console. It has legacy support for commands used in classic Oblivion, however these commands will not be shown as suggestions while typing.
  • Legacy commands can be prefixed with obvConsole to ensure that they are properly interpreted (e.g. obvConsole tgm to toggle god mode on or off).
  • Note that functions relating to graphics and interface (such as tcl to toggle collision on or off) are valid but have no effect due to the original renderer no longer being used. Some of these commands have UE5 equivalents that can be used instead.
  • Many new commands have been added, some of which supersede functions of the Gamebryo engine.