5 things The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion does better than Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the predecessor to Skyrim, is getting the remaster treatment from Bethesda. The fourth mainline installment in the prominent fantasy franchise is an important title and has contributed to the RPG genre. As such, numerous gamers are happy that they can enjoy the open-world title in a modern, up-to-date fashion.

However, while The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is weaker than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in a few aspects, it does a few things better. This article guides you on some of the elements that Oblivion does better than its successor.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the writer's opinions.

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5 things that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion does better than Skyrim

1) Spellmaking vs. Magic System

Skyrim features a good yet comparatively unimpressive magic system (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion used the spellmaking mechanic as the backbone of the magic system. It allowed players to create custom incantations, echoing the expansive player freedom the RPG franchise is known for. Another important factor is that as you level up, you unlock recipes to create more powerful spells, essentially allowing you to power up your magical prowess.

Skyrim, on the other hand, removed spellmaking entirely to replace it with preset incantations, curbing the freedom of Magic users. Another big change is that these magic incantations don't level up beyond a certain point. You might get the ability to use a spell additional times, but its (comparatively) lower destructive power doesn't justify choosing the Mage class over any other.

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2) Presence vs. absence of Athletics and Acrobatics

Acrobatics make hopping around The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's map fun (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

Athletics and Acrobatics were skills present in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The former governed your running and swimming speed while the latter controlled your jump height and fall damage reduction.

A few players thought they weren't good due to how leveling them up worked, as it meant you needed to constantly run, jump, and swim to upgrade them. However, it added an immersive aspect to the game and felt like an organic way of refining those stats.

They were removed from Skyrim, however, with the only way to increase your sprinting ability being by reducing the stamina usage. But it doesn't approach the levels of extreme feats you can do with maxed-out Athletics or Acrobatics in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, like moving faster than a car or surviving massive falls.

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3) Oblivion has much better overall writing

While both games have good writing, Oblivion edges it out with a noticeable margin (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

The overall character and quest writing is something that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion does much better than Skyrim. The former's world often feels more alive and varied, with its jank sometimes adding to the feeling.

For example, the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines are great and feature some of the best and most fun side quests out there, like Whodunit?, which, as the name suggests, puts you in a unique murder mystery setting but flips the script in one major aspect, making it incredibly memorable and something worth experiencing yourself.

While that's not to say that Skyrim has bad writing or that it doesn't have any memorable quests, the fact remains that Oblivion's varied, fun, and engaging writing is almost universally considered its strong point.

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4) Oblivion's Radiant AI is nerfed in Skyrim

While janky, Radiant AI is still an ambitious concept (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion touted a massive innovation that aimed to add immersion to the world: Radiant AI. According to Bethesda's pitch, all the NPCs are controlled by this AI, which provides goals and lets them figure out how to achieve them instead of giving them set routines. This would mean that an upstanding citizen would buy food if hungry, while a criminal would simply steal it.

Skyrim, on the other hand, dialed the AI back significantly in terms of permissible permutations. Thus, if you want to get the NPC freedom of its predecessor, you must install mods like AI Overhaul or Immersive Citizens, at the cost of making it more bug-prone on heavy load orders.

While the execution left much to be desired (with NPCs sometimes going through rampages or having nonsensical conversational lines), its sheer scale and ambition are still something of a novelty and feel fresh compared to the more scripted approach of Skyrim. The latter sometimes feels repetitive due to its more restrained and linear approach.

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5) The technological leap from Oblivion to Skyrim isn't the biggest

While Skyrim is the best-looking, it also had the longest developer support (Image via Bethesda Softworks)

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion made a massive leap from its predecessor, Morrowind (a great game on its own), where blocky models from the latter started approaching grounded and realistic proportions in the former. Oblivion managed to depict its world in higher fidelity while providing more than double the explorable map size of its predecessor, with a development cycle of four years.

Although Skyrim did improve on its prequel by a large margin, it came at the cost of lowering the map size by around four kilometers, along with other removals like less NPC freedom, removal of a few skills, etc., with a development cycle of five years.

While the dynamic shadows and lighting system, alongside higher fidelity, make Elder Scrolls V the best-looking game in the series, it also had a much longer refining cycle with one big re-release (introducing volumetric lighting and a more stable engine iteration), and 15 years of modding down the line.

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Check out our other articles on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's remaster:

• When and where to watch Oblivion Remastered reveal trailer
• 5 reasons to be excited for the rumored The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered
• Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion Remastered release time (and whether you can play early with New Zealand trick)