Skyblivion

While the prospect The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered turning out to be a real thing had folks wondering what that might mean for Oblivion remake mod Skyblivion’s release, Bethesda were quick quell fears of a shutdown.

Both sides have been openly chummy since that point, with the studio behind The Elder Scrolls even having the team of modders pop by for a visit around the time their project was being shouted out on the official channels. We’ve now learned a bit more about how that social call went and what the two sides chatted about.

Speaking to cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer, Skyblivion project lead Kyle ‘Rebelzize’ Rebel revealed that the studio visit came about because he’d been planning a trip to the US around PAX East, and decided that since he was going to be in the area, he’d ring up Bethesda and see if they’d mind Skyblivion folks popping in.

Cue a day at ToddCo HQ that the modder recalled ran from 11AM until 6PM, with Bethesda’s devs and Todd Howard himself chatting to the Skyblivion folks about their work. Naturally, it sounds like the studio’s devs were curious about how the modders have found building their own interpretation of Oblivion using Skyrim’s tools, with Rebel saying that “how we experienced using those tools, what kind of issues we run into, and what we’d like to see in terms of documentation” were all big talking points.

As for the feedback the Skyblivion folks offered, the project lead said he kindly asked Bethesda to consider bringing back the official creation kit tutorial video series it released on YouTube when Skyrim got its tools. If you’ve not watched these vids, they’re basically short how-tos narrated by different Bethesda devs that explain the ins-and-outs of the modding process.

A way to get started with Skyrim modding using the CK by making a basic dungeon, if – as I was when I used these videos for exactly that last year – you don’t know your bum from your elbow when it comes to actually making mods or the navigating the practicalities of game development.

Sure, there are plenty of good tutorials you can find if you’re looking to get into modding more recent Bethesda games like Starfield or Fallout 4, with some even being by high-profile modders, but it’s cool to have the devs who made the thing you’ve been playing talk you through the tools they used to do so. They’re pretty good teachers, and it gives you an extra level of appreciation the next time you delve into one of Skyrim’s dungeons. You’ll know just how much work went to ensuring the enemies don’t all get stuck on the same rock and eliminating void-leaking gaps in the ceiling, and it’ll be good for your soul.

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If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my hours with Oblivion Remastered, it’s that Oblivion’s dungeons kind of suck. They’re labyrinthine, exist as one of three types, and when you get to the end of them your grand prize often turns out to be, like, 5 gold and a journeyman retort. And then you have to retrace your steps to get back out.

Bethesda didn’t really crack its dungeon formula until Skyrim, where you could at least be relatively sure you had some kind of prize awaiting you at the end of a long session of hackin’ and slashin’: an enchanted weapon, a new word for a shout, that kind of thing.

When I sat down with Skyblivion lead dev Rebelzize for a chat about the upcoming Oblivion-in-Skyrim remake, it sounded like back-porting that dungeon philosophy to Cyrodiil was gonna be a key goal of the mod project.

“I think for a lot of people that play Oblivion now, it will be frustrating at times,” said Rebel, “there’s just old game design that doesn’t really translate anymore, and some of that is still present in the remaster from Bethesda themselves, because they’ve not remade it, which is a key difference [from Skyblivion], which is good for us.”

It’s a neat point of divergence between Skyblivion’s fan-made remake of Oblivion and Bethesda’s remaster, which went out of its way to retain all the strange foibles that made the OG game what it is. “We still have something to offer in that we have more or less redesigned every aspect of the game,” says Rebel.

(Image credit: Bethesda, TESRenewal)

“The easiest example is something that was introduced in Skyrim… once you’re at the boss chamber, the final area, you get a loop back to where you started.” In original Oblivion and the remaster, by contrast, “most of the time there’s nothing at the end. There’s no boss or loot or anything to make that delve rewarding. Then once you’ve done that very unrewarding delve, you have to backtrack all the way.”

Not so in Skyblivion. “That’s something I’ve been trying to really hammer on with everyone in the teams, that we make the dungeons fun. And if a dungeon serves no other purpose than to just distract someone from what they’re doing, then it can’t just be a bear den—you know, with a really big black bear—at the end.”

This is pretty exciting to hear, at least for me. While Oblivion Remastered is very much the Oblivion you remember from 2006 in a lush new wrapper, it sounds like the Skyblivion team is deliberately, consciously pushing things into ‘remake’ territory, and they’re not scared to slaughter some of the OG’s sacred cows if they think it’ll make for a better game. “Oblivion is one of those games that look really good from a distance, because it has those really lush forests, but once you’re in a forest there’s usually nothing between city A and city B.”

The possibility of scattering in new details, new design philosophies, new stuff is, says Rebel, “Where the power of a proper remake comes from, and where I hope we will have some relevance and staying power within internet culture and the Elder Scrolls fandom.”

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Skyblivion devs used their Bethesda visit to fight the good fight, asking Todd and co to bring back Skyrim-style official modding tutorials

Oblivion’s dungeons suck, Skyblivion is making them better: ‘That’s where the power of a proper remake comes from’