Oblivion Remastered's Mods Have a High Ceiling to Shatter…

Summary

Oblivion Remastered's mod scene sees a rapid rise in mods from 200 to 1,000 within days.
Challenges with graphics, official support, and fanbase split hinder Oblivion Remastered mods.
The game's potential for modding greatness relies on a dedicated community willing to push boundaries.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered’s shadow drop was met with massive success, and within a day of release, it already had 200 mods and counting. In six days, that number jumped to 1,000 with no signs of stopping. Naturally, comparisons arose between Skyrim and Oblivion Remastered’s modding scenes, with many curious if the new Bethesda title will outshine its legendary predecessor. Despite the encouraging start, however, there are multiple factors stacked against Oblivion Remastered’s modding future, with an uphill battle in front of it that may very well prove a difficult climb.

Skyrim’s modding community has a legendary status in the space, boasting over 100,000 individual mods for the Special Edition version and 70,000 mods for the original. This means that TES 5 has been crowned the modding king twice over, taking both the number one and number two spots. Whether or not Oblivion Remastered can come anywhere close to this level is still up in the air.

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Oblivion Remastered Player Completes the Game as a 'Pacifist'

An Oblivion Remastered player online manages to beat the game as a 'pacifist,' killing no enemies along the way.

Posts

By Daniel Morris

Oblivion Remastered Mods May Never Come Close to Competing with Skyrim

On the surface, Oblivion Remastered’s modding future looks rosy, but the reality might be a bit more complicated. Despite an upward trend of mod releases, the game’s mod catalog will likely start experiencing a stall in the next few months for a multitude of reasons.

Less Need for Mods

A key part of the universal praise surrounding Oblivion Remastered is that the game has a level of polish that’s arguably rare to see in a Bethesda title. While the iconic Oblivion jank is still very much there, that’s more a deliberate choice than an oversight. An Elder Scrolls title without jank wouldn’t feel like an Elder Scrolls title at all. This means mods targeted at fixing bugs and improving performance in Oblivion Remastered are not as necessary as they were for Skyrim.

Additionally, a large chunk of mods made for any game are aimed at improving the graphics and visuals; Skyrim stands as proof. Oblivion Remastered doesn’t have that problem because visual fidelity is Unreal Engine 5’s strong suit, and the game takes full advantage of it. Of course, that isn’t to say visual mods won’t exist, as ReShades are among the most popular Oblivion Remastered mod categories and prove otherwise, but there is less of a demand for them.

No Official Mod Support

Bethesda has confirmed that there will be no official mod support for Oblivion Remastered. No Creation Kit, no Creation Club, and no in-game support. While this doesn’t necessarily prevent mod authors from creating massive DLC-sized land mods or overhauls like they have done in Skyrim, it does make it less accessible, which will inevitably result in fewer mods overall.

Split Fanbase

As time passes and fans get familiar with the pros and cons of Oblivion Remastered, the player base will likely split into two parts: a group that prefers the Remastered version and a group that prefers the original. The mod authors will likely follow, and the output for Remastered mods will naturally slow down.

It could, of course, be argued that this is similar to the split between the original Skyrim, now called Oldrim, and the newer Skyrim Special Edition. A key difference with Skyrim’s two editions compared to Oblivion’s is that the Special Edition was tailor-made to make modding easier, resulting in near-unanimous migration of all modders to it; Oblivion Remastered doesn’t offer the same.

Initial Boom Is Deceiving

Within hours of Oblivion Remastered’s release, it was discovered that some mods from the original Oblivion in ESP format could be copied and pasted into the mod folder, and they would work. This was possible because Oblivion Remastered is a near one-to-one copy in terms of gameplay, and some gameplay mods that worked for the first game worked for the new one as well. However, there is only a limited number of mods that fall under this category, and most of them have already been published as new mods. With time, this pre-made stockpile will run out.

Lots of "Filler" Mods

It’s a known fact that some mod authors aim to flood a game with new, low-quality mods in order to game the system. It’s an easy way to earn Nexus Mods’ local currency, Donation Points (DP), without having to put in too much effort. If two games are made with the same engine, chances are that mods are transferable between them to a degree. These mod authors aim for this niche, flooding the site with so-called "filler" mods in hopes of getting the first-mover advantage. As a game gets older, these mod authors move on to newer titles—Oblivion Remastered won’t be any different.

Oblivion Remastered Missed Out With It’s Unique Items

Oblivion Remastered misses the opportunity to add this heavily requested feature to its unique items, one the original game also didn’t do.

Posts

By Emma Neeson

Stubborn Modders Could Still Bring Oblivion Remastered the Crown

One of the biggest things Oblivion Remastered modding has going for it is that it still uses the original Gamebryo Engine underneath Unreal Engine 5. Gamebryo is the engine that the original Oblivion 2006 was developed in. Unreal Engine 5 exists as a wrapper on top of Gamebryo, handling graphics and audio while leaving gameplay alone. This is also the reason why almost all bugs and glitches that existed in the original title can be replicated in Oblivion Remastered; the original engine is still the same.

There are aspects where Oblivion Remastered trumps Skyrim, at least to some fans, but the chances of it coming out ahead of TES 5 in modding are absurdly low. That said, there is nothing a dedicated modding community cannot achieve; Skyrim itself being the best example. If the community is passionate enough, and enough people care about the game, which is not outside the realm of possibility, Oblivion Remastered could still end up being a more popular title than Skyrim for modders.