The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is undoubtedly a better game than the original. It offers not only vast visual improvements, but gameplay ones too. From sprinting to actual sound effects in battle, there are a lot of minor and major tweaks that have been made to improve the overall experience and make it more palatable for a modern audience. In every sense of the word, Oblivion Remastered is a AAA modern RPG that fits right in alongside the likes of Avowed and Dragon Age: The Veilguard - it is better than the latter.

However, for all its strengths - most of which have made Oblivion Remastered one of the most successful remakes in a long time - there is a major flaw with it that I can't seem to overlook. Oblivion Remastered's enhanced visuals are the main talking point of this remaster, enough to make players believe it is a full-blown remake. However, as much as I do agree that they look phenomenal, Oblivion Remastered's visuals actually ruin a lot of what made the original experience look and feel so incredible in the first place.

Oblivion Remastered Overhauls The Original's Visuals

It Has Been Remade In Unreal Engine 5

Oblivion Remastered is considered a remaster, but it doesn't look like one. Every single asset from the original game was rebuilt from the ground up in the ever photorealistic Unreal Engine 5, with the developers boasting that each object is packed with polygons, allowing them to be more detailed and realistic than ever. It is absolutely a night and day difference, with fans not even needing a side-by-side to tell just how far Oblivion Remastered has taken the visual upgrade. Even if Bethesda won't call it one, Oblivion Remastered is a remake, or, at the very least, looks like one.

In many ways, this visual upgrade doesn't get in the way of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's style. That game, while it has certainly aged poorly, had a certain ethereal, surreal, and whimsical look, and, at least in certain aspects, Oblivion Remastered respects that. This can be seen the best in Oblivion Remastered's most bizarre feature, its character models. Rather than changing Oblivion's memeable character designs to Skyrim's more traditional look, Virtuos and Bethesda kept the look intact while increasing the amount of detail and making it slightly more aesthetically pleasing.

I had hoped that the same could be said about the rest of Oblivion Remastered's visuals, but I'm not convinced that is the case. While the developers did a phenomenal job at retaining a lot of Oblivion's original quirks, the things that made it such an iconic experience in the first place, they almost went too far with the visuals, and made it look too good. As a result, Oblivion Remastered, at least in my opinion, looks significantly worse than the original Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as it is entirely lacking in style.

Oblivion Remastered's Visuals Are Inferior To The Original's

They're Significantly More Generic

Oblivion Remastered's biggest change is its visuals, and, as such, I had hoped that they wouldn't get in the way of my enjoyment. However, rather than simply upgrading what was already there, like with the character models, the use of Unreal Engine 5 makes everything look painfully generic. All of the vibrant colors and lush forests that made Cyrodiil such a beautiful world to explore - and helped to better contrast against the harsh Oblivion worlds - have been washed out in favor of muted colors and bland environmental design.

The ethereal bloom that gave the original game its high-fantasy aesthetic has gone completely in favor of a greater draw distance that only serves to illustrate just how generic much of Cyrodiil appears now. This is certainly lessened when players enter cities or dungeons, with every interior looking incredible and just as I it from the original. Cities look great too, with a greater density of detail, making them feel far more lived-in and impressive as a result. Unfortunately, as soon as you return to the open world, it feels completely barren.

I can only hope that this is something that can be fixed with future Oblivion Remastered mod , although it seems unlikely that players will mod the game to look worse. It is hard to identify what makes Oblivion Remastered's interpretation of Cyrodiil look so bad - beyond the aforementioned switch in color palette - but I think it is the absence of whimsy. Oblivion Remastered isn't lacking assets from the original game, nor has it misplaced any. It just doesn't have the same atmosphere, tone, and vibe as a result of this visual change.

There's something deeply wrong about this clean, highly detailed, and photorealistic version of Cyrodiil.

I think for newcomers, this change will look appealing, certainly more so than the original. But for someone like me, who has sunk hundreds, if not thousands, of hours into Oblivion, there's something deeply wrong about this clean, highly detailed, and photorealistic version of Cyrodiil. It reminds me of when people mod Skyrim to be full of trees and grass and look hyperrealistic, thus completely missing the point of why Skyrim is full of such barren, cold, and harsh landscapes in the first place. Sure, it looks graphically better, but it misunderstands the original intent.

Bethesda Shouldn't Use UE5 For The Elder Scrolls 6

It Doesn't Suit This Universe

It is easy to look at Oblivion Remastered and think that The Elder Scrolls VI should look the same, or even better. It doesn't feel like visuals as good as Oblivion Remastered's are currently achievable in Bethesda's extremely outdated Creation Engine. So, one might assume they'll switch to Unreal Engine 5, just like Halo Studios has done for its next game. However, this would absolutely be a mistake, if only for the fact that it completely robs TES6 of any potential identity it may have.

Unreal Engine 5 games definitely look good - although they consistently perform horribly - but they, more often than not, look the same. That's not to say there aren't stylish UE5 games; in fact, the opposite is true. However, a lot of AAA developers use Unreal Engine 5 to achieve a more realistic effect, and, in doing so, end up with similar-looking games. Without a sense of identity, UE5 games tend to merge together as dark, often muted, photorealistic experiences. That can't be the case with The Elder Scrolls 6.

As great as it would be to have TES6 be Bethesda's best-looking game, I'd much rather it looked like the original Oblivion than Oblivion Remastered. If Bethesda does end up utilizing UE5, even for a bit of TES6's design, then it should go more in the direction of games like Avowed, which, while still skewing more towards the generic fantasy side, has managed to breathe a unique creativity into its world. Bethesda has an opportunity to do something special with TES6, so I hope it doesn't mess it up and make it look as generic as Oblivion Remastered.