Is the new Oblivion release a remake or remaster?

After two years of silence amongst numerous rumors, Bethesda has finally revealed The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Now, a great deal of returning Elder Scrolls fans (including myself) will find themselves asking: is it a remaster, or a remake? The official answer is "Remastered."

Most players, however, expect the needle to be somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. In this article, we'll try to explore what exactly it should be called.

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Is Oblivion Remastered a faithful remaster, or does it remake certain elements?

Bar-for-bar, it's the same game (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

Before we set out to examine Oblivion Remastered, let's roughly define the terms, just for clarity's sake. A "remaster" is a fresh coat of paint on an old product. A remake, on the other hand, rebuilds the whole game from scratch.

On paper, Oblivion Remastered is certainly a remaster, or it would have been pertinent for Bethesda/ZOS to simply go for the other term. It's a complete visual overhaul, putting the game in the Unreal Engine 5 to do the graphical rendering. It's also very readily apparent that the assets were remade to fit this new engine, a far cry from the blocky early 20s textures in the original Oblivion.

Elements of the narrative also remain the same. It's likely the dungeon designs were a bit touched up, perhaps even adding some quality-of-life features. However, the story, characters, and voice acting remain the same as the original.

This means you still get to experience all the charming, borderline goofy nature of the writing, just spoken by more lifelike Cyrodiilic people rather than potatoes with mouthpieces.

All the in-game systems are also the same in Oblivion Remastered. This includes the attribute system, the major/minor skills, racial bonuses, and even the flow of combat. It is just served on a shinier platter. The animations have been retouched and in some places remade, but remain very faithful to the original.

Considering all of this, the answer is clear. Oblivion Remastered is a proper remaster to translate the old game into a new generation of gaming, with the sheen of Unreal Engine 5. It is a complete visual remake with some animation touch-ups to make it look far less janky, but remain faithful to the original concept of the game.

By comparison, Skyblivion is a full-on remake of the original game. It's not only a visual remaster, but also remakes the level design of each dungeon to give them much more flair, and polishes up the pain points such as the level scaling logic.