Oblivion is a game to keep you up all night, and probably the next night, too. An engrossing RPG, this addition to the Elder Scrolls oeuvre offers you endless variables in a nearly endless environment. Take your time with the pre-game character composition, you'll be clocking a life-shattering number of hours with that thing. You'll choose everything from your race to your sign, each with their own unique characteristics, talents, and weaknesses. How you grow from there is really up to you.
Inconveniently enough, Cyrodiil is in peril and daedra are invading; it is for you to stop the Mythic Dawn cult from plunging you and all the cute romping deer from being overtaken by dark nastiness and things like "Blood Corridors". Or you could just kill the deer and rob them of their venison.
In addition to the main quest (finding the king's heir, saving the world, all that rot) you can join up to four guilds. Completing missions for the main quest, Fighters Guild and Mages Guild will earn you fame, while work performed for the Thieves and Assassins Guilds will garner you some respectable infamy. While profitable, the Fighters Guild quests lacked intrigue, and I much preferred the Thieves and Assassins Guild quests. Sadly, the worst quests of all are from the main storyline. The Plane of Oblivion is so redundant you will find yourself just plowing through as fast as you can, with little regard to the goodies along the way.
In addition to the guild and main quests the citizens of Cyrodiil need help with all sorts of tasks, from finding their children to reclaiming their home from ogres. They're like that really irresponsible friend. At its heart, what is a good RPG but glorified fetch quests? Every good deed - as well as some downright nasty ones - has its reward. The guild quests will be the most profitable, materially anyway. Word to the wise: save often, Cyrodiil is perilous and missteps such as getting caught stealing can be a real pain.
Leveling up will be a source of amusement, since everything you do contributes to your various skills. For example, jumping from place to place will increase your acrobatics, and casting spells while you jump will improve the corresponding schools of magic. Your overall skill level will increase as you develop your Major Skills (determined by race, sign, et cetera). Word of advice: I leapt from Chorrol to Leyawin and back again to gain the ability to jump on water; this was a complete waste of time. Not only was jumping on water the lamest animation in the game, it's pretty useless. By the time you're a master of acrobatics you can outrun, outfight or out-magic anything in the game.
The AI is quirky, and rife with amusing blips. Fortunately, none of it dealt a critical blow to game play. One mind numbing downside is that while characters may all be unique in appearance there are about four different voices that you will hear over and over. And over. Since the game is so addicting you can count on clocking long hours, which is why I appreciated Bethesda including potty and snack breaks (intermissions, if you will) in the game. For example, you wish to reenter a town: go ahead, make yourself a sandwich and crack open a beer, it’ll take awhile. Seriously, the load times are epic. In spite of these quirky negatives, Oblivion neatly earns a spot on my OMG, Most Fun Games Ever list and is well worth the next-gen price tag.
IGN : How does the new The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, released in 2025 for Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam, and PS5, compare to the original 2006 Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion released on Xbox 360, played via Xbox Series X/S Backwards Compatibility?
Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith looks back on Oblivion's Horse Armour DLC 18 years after the internet revolted against it.
“One of the things about Horse Armour that you have to remember is Bethesda, I believe, was the very first company to do downloadable content expansions,” Nesmith told us. “Nobody had done that before for the platforms. We literally pioneered that."
That's literally not true and not even close, bud. In fact, that's like 5 to 6 years too late. While I don't remember if Sega Channel offered any DLC like content, I do know that during the Dreamcast years, with SegaNet, there was DLC for some games. Some were free and some were not. As usual, Sega did it first when it comes to a lot of these Online stuff in the console space. In fact, you can thanks SegaNet for Xbox Live.
"And so Bethesda didn’t know what the hell it was doing at the time. We didn’t know!” And the best part is that they still don't. Nooice!
Yeah, SEGA definitely doesn't get the kudos it deserves for it's part in online gaming.
And now Blizzard sells horse armor for x3-4 times as much in Diablo 4. We've come full circle.
Oblivion's Shivering Isles is arguably the best DLC for any RPG and is still enjoyable after more than 17 years.
I was just thinking about that a few weeks ago. How amazing Shivering Isles was... Felt like a whole new world.
Witcher 3 Blood and Wine is the best dlc for any rpg....not even arguably. It is the best.
Agree that Blood and Wine is an exceptional DLC cut from the same quality cloth of the main game. Shivering Isles was that over a decade ago, and was truly a unique setting from the rest of the game. Possibly one of the last major old school "expansion" packs.
Terrific expansion. A starkly different locale with new plants, wildlife, towns, weapons, quests, Daedra variations including a remarkable madman deity presiding over that beautiful freak show.
Bethesda may never make anything that good again and that saddens me.
This is still my all time favorite game on any console... and it probably will be for quite some time.
I've never played a game for so long, and had it impact me so much.
Great review for a great game... on all systems!! (though, I'd give it a 9.5)
I got my 1000 points from it.. hmm that reminds me I still need to do the Shivering Island! I loved the magic use in it ^^ and yes you get some of the best equipment from the guilds then from the main menu. The second time I played thru this game I hardly killed anyone in the Oblivion Planes and just ran thru those levels. They are dumb good call on that. Nice review.
im a huge fan of oblivion. i have it on ps3 and have completed EVERY SINGLE QUEST in the entire game including the shivering isles. im just waiting for the next one to hit ps3 like that fortress thing they were talking about.
well done for reviewing this classic .. & well written too.
i completely agree. On the 360 i played it two times through around 75 hours both times. And am hoping to put in a lot of hours on the ps3 version with the expansion packs.