Remastered Changes

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. Bugs from classic Oblivion that have been fixed are also listed in this article.

This page documents many of these minor changes. Other differences are detailed on their own pages:

New Content[edit]

Clairvoyance[edit]

Example of Clairvoyance spell in action

A new Clairvoyance spell effect has been added, guiding the player towards their current objective in a similar fashion to the same effect featured in Skyrim. A single spell utilizing this effect exists in the game, and is given to the player character at the beginning of the game.

Deluxe Edition Quests[edit]

The Deluxe Edition includes new content for the game, with items based on the aesthetics of Akatosh and Mehrunes Dagon. New quests have been added to award this content.

Order Equipment quests:

Cataclysm Equipment quests:

Bugs Fixed[edit]

Stability[edit]

  • On PC The game no longer crashes when trying to Alt-Tab in the Main Menu.

Exploits[edit]

Items[edit]

Quests[edit]

  • Cheydinhal Recommendation: The max soul level in the unique Black Soul Gems encountered during the quest now have their max soul level set to None, ensuring the player cannot fill them with souls and then use, preventing themselves from completing the quest.
  • Leyawiin Recommendation: Kalthar no longer has a key when he's alive, instead, it only spawns on his body once he is dead. As the player is unable to pickpocket the key prematurely, they must defeat Kalthar in order to leave Fort Blueblood, so the quest can no longer be softlocked.
  • Canvas the Castle: The painting of Charrus Valga will now appear in Countess Arriana Valga's private chamber if the quest is completed by turning in the correct culprit.
  • Bittneld and Emfrid: The quest now functions as intended instead of skipping directly to the conclusion.
  • Namira: The quest now correctly awards a Fame point upon successful completion.
  • Affairs of a Wizard: The quest now correctly awards an Infamy point.
  • Alawen, Bralsa Andaren, Tooth-in-the-Sea and Torbern (master trainers and NPCs needed for quests for Marksman, Destruction, Alteration and Acrobatics training, respectively) are all set essential from the start of the game, to ensure that the related quests can no longer be started when the characters are already dead. Notably, there's a check in the script to verify their quests haven't been completed before that is done, however, as no script exists to remove their essential status afterward, they remain essential for the rest of the game.

Visuals[edit]

Text corrections[edit]

Others[edit]

  • 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.
  • Hil the Tall is now correctly an Alteration trainer instead of Illusion, which matches the NPC dialogue.
  • Killing Seridur at the end of the Order of the Virtuous Blood quest without letting him monologue first no longer counts as murder.
  • Lord Lovidicus now correctly leaves Vampire Dust on his corpse.
  • Most upgrade papers for the Houses maintain their non-zero value until you finish bartering (the House Storage Area and the House Sitting Area in the Imperial City, at least, are still immediately set to 0). This prevents an issue where immediately selling the upgrade papers after having bought them from the merchant (without ever exiting the conversation) prevented the new upgrades from ever appearing in the house without the ability to purchase them back, as no-cost items given to the merchant do not reappear in the merchant's sales list.
  • Black Rock Chest in Black Rock Caverns now correctly holds 1,766 gold in addition to the random levelled amount.
  • Open spells Fenrik's Welcome and The Unwelcome Guest, now have magnitudes of 80 and 20 as opposed to 50 and 12, respectively. This ensures they open any lock with the same label in the game, as opposed to only some.
  • Wayshrines and Nine Divines Altar blessings, as well as spells used to give the bonuses of Blood Fountains and Ayleid Wells are now flagged immune to Spell Absorption, ensuring the player cannot restore mana for free by absorbing the positive spells.
  • Note from First Mate Filch now can correctly be picked back up and taken into inventory after thrown out.
  • Guards in the Green Emperor Way district of the Imperial City can now be talked to about the "Imperial Palace" topic.
  • The Bandits and Marauders in Fort Nikel have a longer "aggro" range and will engage in combat with each other. However, their pathing takes them upstairs and through the area that the player will enter. They will get stuck on the gates until the player opens them. If the player is spotted, they then become the new target rather than the opposing faction.

Gameplay[edit]

Calculations[edit]

Original Remastered
Max Health Base health is Endurance × 2. On level up, add Endurance × 0.1, rounded down. The bonus health gained on previous level ups are not affected by Endurance adjustments. Health is (Strength × 0.67) + (Endurance × 1.33) + (Endurance × 0.1 × (Level - 1)). This means that the bonus health from previous level ups are retroactively affected by Endurance adjustments.
Natural Health Regeneration None Health now regenerates at a rate of Endurance × 0.025 + 1.25 per-second. Health has a 6 second delay before it starts regenerating after taking damage. When in combat, regeneration is significantly reduced, even when not taking damage.
Magicka Recovery Speed Based on Willpower and Maximum Magicka: 0.01 × (0.75 + 0.02 × Willpower) × TotalMagicka Based solely on Willpower: 2 × (Willpower × 0.02 )^2 + 1.5 × (Willpower × 0.02)
Max Fatigue Strength + Willpower + Agility + Endurance. Based only on Agility and Willpower: (Willpower × 2.66) + (Agility × 1.33)
Fatigue Recovery A constant rate of 10 points per-second.

If running, recovery rate is reduced by 80%, with the penalty lowering by 20% every 25 Athletics.

Based on Agility: Agility × 0.125 + 17.5 per-second

If running, recovery rate is 16.67% if Athletics is below 25.

Character Creation[edit]

  • 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, brother/sister) 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.
  • Eye and hair options no longer have names, with the player selecting an icon from the list instead.
  • 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.
  • The character limit on names has been increased to 30 characters.

General[edit]

  • 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.
    • Achievement Xbox Gamerscore values have been adjusted down, bringing the total from 1250 across Oblivion and Shivering Isles, to just 1000.
    • Grey Fox achievement has been renamed Guildmaster.
    • A new achievement has been added solely for Playstation: Worldly God, which requires getting all other achievements.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Staying at inns and taverns will replenish the food generated on the tables.
  • 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.
  • Wayshrine and Nine Divines Altar blessings, as well as effects of Blood Fountains and Ayleid Wells are now marked as lesser powers in active effects as opposed to regular spells.
  • Olroy Cheese is no longer marked as a quest item.
  • All Oblivion:Horses are 5 points of speed faster than in original release, likely to make them more useful now that the player is able to sprint.
  • You can now mount horses while over-encumbered, allowing you to bypass the inability to fast travel with over-encumbrance without spells or enchantments entirely.

Quests[edit]

  • The tutorial now has additional messaging guiding you through various different mechanics, including how to use the new Clairvoyance spell. Several messages now pop up in the corner of the screen, instead of as a prompt you must close.
  • Quests from downloadable content no longer all begin at once the moment you leave the Imperial Prison Sewer following the Tutorial. Instead, they are all started by visiting their respective locations. New rumor dialogue has been added to help guide you to these destinations, though the rumors can only be heard from characters using new voicetypes.
  • Fingers of the Mountain has been renamed to "Chorrol Recommendation". However, the second part is still identified as "Fingers of the Mountain, Part II", despite there no longer being a first part.
  • The Bloodworm Helm and the Necromancer's Amulet can now be found in the Arch-Mage's Night Stand following the completion of Confront the King. The Necromancer's Amulet however is bugged and may sometimes not appear in the container.
  • You can no longer have both Bravil Recommendation and Through A Nightmare, Darkly active at the same time. This would otherwise cause issues with the latter quest.
  • The fight sequence between Akatosh and Mehrunes Dagon at the end of Light the Dragonfires has changed and the main theme plays during it.

Locations[edit]

  • 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. The open wall leading out of bounds in Unmarked Cave Mazeway and the rock wall that only opens from the wrong side in Unmarked Cave Black Queen's Hall remain, however, meaning that jumping up through the hole in the ceiling in the first zone will still be necessary to access the boss chest, and to explore the last room in the final zone which contains the mysterious empty chest.
  • Beldaburo and Mingo Cave are modified in the Deluxe Edition for use in the quests for the exclusive items.

Magic[edit]

NPCs[edit]

  • 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. This is due to her involvement in a new quest which required new voice acting, and Dark Elves actually receiving new voice work as opposed to High Elves who reused the lines from the original release.
  • 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.

Settings[edit]

  • The main menu now separates save files by character.
    • Note that a new section of save files is only made when starting a new game from the prison. If a save file before exiting the sewers is used and the character's name is changed at the sewer gate, subsequent saved games on that character will be in the same section, under the character's new name. The old name will not be maintained as its own section.
  • 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.
  • Console players can now bind quick save and quick load to the controller.
  • 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.

Vampirism[edit]

  • 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.
  • Can contract porphyric hemophilia while already a vampire.

Interface[edit]

HUD[edit]

  • 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.
  • You can no longer attempt to harvest Pitcher Plants, which are now purely decorative. In the original game, these plants could be activated despite providing no ingredients, meaning you would always fail to harvest anything.

Menus[edit]

  • 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.
  • Many item icons are the same as classic Oblivion, but have been visually enhanced to improve quality. Many other items (including all armor and weapons) have new icons (see Remastered Icons for more information)
  • 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 local map tab has been removed. The local map is now only accessed by zooming fully into the world map, or through a button at the top of the zoom bar, and is no longer the map view that is shown by default.
    • In exteriors, some elements on the local map are now lightly colored, instead of always appearing monotone.

Localization[edit]

  • All text for the Hand to Hand skill is now formatted as "Hand-To-Hand".
  • All instances of "Battle Axe" are now formatted as "Battle-Axe".
  • Open spell effect is now called Open Lock.
  • The final prompt to go back to character creation menu before leaving sewers is now called "Edit Identity" as opposed to "Edit Race", as the menu also allows to change body type, origin and facial characteristics.

Other[edit]

  • The interface for the Persuasion minigame has been redesigned with distinct colors to denote a character's action preferences. The colors are gradually revealed during the first persuasion attempt, and are fully shown in subsequent attempts.
  • 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.

Controls[edit]

  • 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.
  • The default PC controls now have jumping assigned to Space as opposed to R key, and taking items assigned to E key as opposed to Space.

Graphics[edit]

General[edit]

  • 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.
  • A new dynamic lighting system has been implemented utilizing the capabilities of UE's Lumen.
  • The Zombie/corpse model now wears pants.

Visual Effects[edit]

  • 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.
    • Restoration magic now uses varied visual effects, for Example: Restore Health is Golden, Restore Fatigue is Green, Restore Attribute has a red tint with orange intertwined, Cure spells are Blue, Fortify Spells vary from Golden, to Blue, to Green to Orange based on the type. instead of all types of Restoration spells being white-blue.
  • Bound weapons and armor now have a blue glow around their model, distinguishing them from normal Daedric equipment.
  • 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.
  • 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.

World[edit]

  • New environmental visual effects have been added to enhance locations, such as insects flying around outside, and small fish swimming through water.
  • Distant terrain has been reworked, with surrounding mountains generally being taller and more imposing than in classic 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.
  • The entrance door to the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary no longer has its distinct red lighting effect. The relief on the door itself also now depicts a sixth and seventh child of the Night Mother, contradicting existing lore.
  • The sign maker for Lelles' Quality Merchandise originally left out the "h" on the store's sign, but one was marked in afterwards. This detail has now been removed, and the sign reads only as 'Lelles' Quality Mercandise' without the humorously-added 'h'.

Animations[edit]

  • Doors and containers are now visually animated when opening them.
  • Lip-sync animations for NPC dialogue use an entirely new system.

Item Designs[edit]

Audio[edit]

  • 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.
  • All non-English voices are removed; the remaster only features English voice-acting.
  • Dremora females are now fully voiced, after being mute with no assigned voice files in the original version of the game.
  • 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.
  • Chapel bells on the hour can now be heard further away from the chapel entrance, rather than only when standing extremely close to the doors. However, the sound can only be heard when within a certain distance of the chapel, and abruptly cuts off when moving out of range.

Technical[edit]

  • The Steam version supports trading cards.
  • 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 - applies record changes introduced in Remastered.
      • AltarDeluxe.esp - contains content exclusive for Deluxe edition, though the file is present in all editions of the game.
      • AltarESPLocal.esp is referenced in Plugins.txt but may not be present in the game's Data folder.
    • Other ESP and ESM files for Oblivion and its downloadable content are bytecode-identical to those in original release, as all the changes necessary for the remaster are instead handled through overwriting the original records in Altar ESPs. The only exception to this is DLCHorseArmor.esp, which inexplicably has one message in a script, "In order for Snak gra-Bura to give you armor for your horse, you must ride a legally owned mount to the Chestnut Handy Stables.", changed to the new system of handling localization (see below). This is likely an unintentional dirty edit.
      • The new ESP files containing the remaster-exclusive content can be loaded into classic Oblivion, but will replace object names with internal string placeholders.
  • Localization is now handled through Unreal Engine 5. Every record in the game's ESM and ESP files has been updated to use a unique string key as its full name instead of the name itself. The key is resolved to an entry within the game's string tables, which contains all of the game's text.
    • This allows localization to be changed in-game, without the need to load additional ESPs and restart the application.
    • Mods containing records that do not use keys as a full name will cause an [NL] tag to be prefixed in front of the displayed name in-game. If a text string key cannot be resolved, the name will be displayed in-game as <MISSING STRING TABLE ENTRY>.
  • 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.
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