After months of rumours, tangible evidence of a remaster of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion has surfaced online.
There have been rumours of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion getting the remaster or remake treatment as far back as 2023, but they’ve grown much louder over the past few months.
Although no mention of it was made at the Xbox showcase in January, it’s been claimed an Oblivion remaster is on track to launch this year and potentially as early as this month.
More recent rumblings have suggested a shadow drop launch at some point in the coming weeks and those rumblings seem to be corroborated by some pretty blatant evidence of the remaster’s existence: screenshots.
The screenshots come directly from the official website of Virtuos, the Singaporean developer that was rumoured to be helming development of the remaster.
If you check the website now, the screenshots are no longer there, but this is the internet, so of course people were quick to save them elsewhere. You can easily find them on Imgur and other social media sites.
This project boasts a clear graphical upgrade over the original, but despite this overhaul, an official logo reveals it’s being titled as The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered – rather than a remake.
A previous leak claimed that changes have been made to certain gameplay mechanics and systems, which pointed to it being a remake. But the line between remaster and remake has long since become blurred, with even many publishers using the terms incorrectly.
Other details that people noticed before Virtuos nuked their website are that the remaster is being co-developed alongside Bethesda and that it will be a multiplatform launch for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC (there’s no mention of the Nintendo Switch 2 though).
Although a release date wasn’t mentioned anywhere, a deluxe edition is being planned and will include extra weapons, as well as the infamous horse armour that was sold as DLC for the original game in 2006 and is considered to be the start of the industry’s obsession with microtransactions.
As for when fans can expect the game to launch, only yesterday Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb claimed to have heard that the plan is for the Oblivion remaster to shadow drop the week of April 21, which is next week.
Why the remaster is being treated with such secrecy, or why Bethesda thinks it would benefit from a shadow drop, is unclear. The original Oblivion is still fondly remembered and Microsoft could have easily drummed up a lot of hype ahead of time. They also missed the obvious opportunity of announcing it on the game’s 19th anniversary, on March 20.
What’s not so strange is that Microsoft is remastering Oblivion in the first place. The Elder Scrolls 6 is still years away from coming out and Bethesda can only re-release The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim so many times.
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