With Oblivion remake reportedly in the work, what does it mean for Skyrim's Skyblivion mod?

The Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion's legacy today is diminished as an exemplar of the classic glitch-prone nature of mainline Bethesda titles. However, it was a milestone project for the Western role-playing game landscape when it was released. Many open-world role-playing game ideas we take for granted today were pioneered, if not perfected, in Oblivion's iteration of the Gamebryo engine.

Playing Oblivion in 2023 re-instates some of its innate brilliance but also removes its wear and tear. The core of its familiar Bethesda game experience is palpable, with memorable NPCs and a well-crafted immersive open world.

The actual gameplay, however, feels very dated. For this reason, many Oblivion fans expect the game to be redeemed by a remaster that injects some of modern gaming's advancement into its shire fantasy world. There are two known projects like these: the fan-made Skyblivion and the rumored third-party Unreal Engine 5 Oblivion remake.

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Will Skyrim's Skyblivion project release before the rumored Oblivion remake?

By the time The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion was released, there was already a modding community building upon Morrowind, the first title made on the Gamebryo engine. However, the modding community only ballooned into what it is today thanks to the explosive popularity of Skyrim, Oblivion's sequel.

Officially dubbed 'The Elder Scrolls Renewal Project' or TESR, it is a long-standing tradition in the ever-growing collective Bethesda modding community to try and conceptualize the older games in the shiny newer engines.

Even though these are evolutions of the same old engine, each Bethesda title improves upon it drastically. One can trace the lineage of Starfield's state-of-the-art Creation Engine 2 back to the primeval Netimmerse engine from Morrowind.

Morroblivion, a Morrowind remake in Oblivion's Gamebryo engine, was the first ever TESR project. Following its footsteps, Skyblivion is the first ever Oblivion remake project. Development on it started on the Skyrim Creation Engine shortly after Skyrim's release.

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When is Skyblivion projected to release?

Skyblivion finally has a release date! by u/Meowskittles123 in skyrim

Due to management reasons, community-mediated modding projects are time-consuming and prone to enter development hell. However, releasing several massive fan-made undertakings like Fallout New Vegas' The Frontier or Beyond Skyrim: Bruma provides a reprieve from this typical cynicism.

Skyblivion has been over eleven years in the making. The pace of development has been through thin and thick throughout its course. However, the recent wave of development highlights has given transparent rundowns on how much progress they have made.

Roughly three-quarters of its development, from the navmeshing of the overworld to quest coding and voice acting, is finished per the Skyblivion roadmap released on June 24, 2023. The roadmap projects a release date sometime in 2025, according to the current pace of development.

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Does the rumored Oblivion Unreal Engine 5 affect Skyblivion?

The Virtuos Games Oblivion remake might release before the fan-made Oblivion remake on the Skyrim engine (Image via Skyblivion Community Discord)

More recently, a leak on the Gaming Leaks and Rumors subreddit claimed that an Oblivion remake on the Unreal Engine 5 is currently in the talks. This project is conceptualized as a collaboration between Bethesda-Zenimax, now a Microsoft subsidiary, and Virtuos.

Virtuos is a Singapore-based game dev company specializing in aiding other studios with their workforce. Their diverse repertoire ranges from asset creation for Horizon Forbidden West to co-development for the XCOM 2 Switch port.

The leak, verified by a Microsoft employee, claims that this project might be a remaster that uses game code and physics from the original Oblivion engine while giving it the visuals of Unreal Engine 5. The GTA Definitive Edition trilogy can be cited as an example of a paired-engine remaster such as this.

However, it might also end up being a remake where the fundamentals of the game will be redone from the ground up. Depending on whether it is a remaster or a remake, the release window for the project discussed will range from 2024 to early 2025.

As wonderful as a UE5 Oblivion remake could be, it should not budge Skyblivion development. The various gaffes of the original Oblivion stem from inadequacies in its coding rather than engine limitation. If the blunderous release of GTA Definitive Edition is any lesson, the Virtuos Oblivion remake would work best as a complete remake.

Despite the legitimacy of the leaker, the infancy of this rumored remake's development cycle means even the 2025 release date is not written in stone. Skyblivion, on the other hand, is a long time in the making, and its developers are passionate about providing it with an AAA level of polish.

Despite the difficulty of managing a development team made entirely out of volunteers, the dev diaries have sufficiently proven their careful focus on remaining faithful to Oblivion's original vision. A remake of Skyrim's engine has one other significant edge over a UE5 remake: it will have its modding scene.

Admittedly, the new competition on the horizon might draw some wind out of Skyblivion's sails. If the Virtuos Oblivion remake is miraculously fast-tracked and undergoes smooth development, it might decrease community interest in Skyblivion. The currently known information, however, is far from threatening Skyblivion's continued growth.