The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Special Edition is Unlikely
By Alexander Pan 11 January 2017
Bethesda PR vice president Pete Hines reveals that the Skyrim: Special Edition is a one-off and that fans shouldn’t expect the studio to remaster any more Elder Scrolls titles.
The Skyrim: Special Edition may be little more than a graphically-updated version of a five-year-old game, but fans and critics have taken to the remaster quite positively upon its release. With this kind of response to the remastered Elder Scrolls title, it wouldn’t be surprising if Bethesda has more special edition games in the works. But if a new statement from Bethesda PR vice president Pete Hines is to be believed, it appears that the Skyrim remaster is nothing more than a one-off release and fans shouldn’t expect a special edition of Oblivion or any Elder Scrolls game any time soon.
In a new interview with Xbox: The Official Magazine (via GamesRadar), Hines revealed that the Skyrim: Special Edition only came about due to the porting work done by the studio in preparing Fallout 4 for the current generation of consoles. Hines then stated that due to all the “effort and manpower” involved with projects of this scale, Bethesda would prefer to “spend all that effort on something new“, meaning that remasters of older titles, such as Oblivion, aren’t being considered by the studio.
Having said that, Skyrim wasn’t the first game that Bethesda had remastered as the studio had previously done a definitive edition of Dishonored, but Hines explained that this was a “unique case” as it was a “new IP at the very end of the last generation of consoles” and that it “wasn’t a ton of work” to port the game over the current console generation.
This new interview, combined with Hines’ previous statements that the decision to remaster Skyrim instead of Oblivion was due to the amount of work required, an Oblivion: Special Edition certainly doesn’t look to be on the cards in the short or long term. In the meantime, fans can expect a new game from the studio at some point the future as a number of big, long-term projects are currently in the works at Bethesda, but don’t expect The Elder Scrolls 6 anytime soon though.
While an official Oblivion remaster may not be happening, all hope is not lost for fans hoping an updated version of the game. An all-volunteer team of developers have been working for the last three years on Skyblivion, which is essentially Oblivion rebuilt from the ground up using the Skyrim game engine. No release date has been set for this extensive mod just yet, but fans wishing for a new Elder Scrolls remaster are likely wait as long as possible if it meant revisiting Cyrodiil in its updated fan-made glory.
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is now available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Xbox One via backward compatibility.
