Oblivion:Oblivion Remastered Changes

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Oblivion Remastered features many changes from the original release of Oblivion. These include:

Bug Fixes

• The Mace of Molag Bal's Absorb Strength enchantment now lasts 10 seconds instead of 0.
• Scroll duplication glitch can no longer be performed
• Paint Brushes are now affected by gravity.
• The Fighter's Stronghold download no longer causes the Mystic Emporium to become locked during the daytime.
• Learning a spell from a spell tome no longer plays the sound of casting that spell.
• The painting of Charrus Valga will now appear in Countess Arriana Valga's private chamber if Canvas the Castle is completed by turning in the correct culprit.
• Hil the Tall is now correctly an Alteration trainer instead of Illusion, which matches the NPC dialogue.
• The Weaponbane Cuirass no longer occupies the tail equipment slot.
• The Mountaineer's Shield no longer occupies the tail equipment slot.
• The Base Ring of Steelskin now has a Resist Normal Weapons enchantment like the other Steelskin rings.
• The leveled effects of the Mind and Body Ring are now assigned in the conventional order.
• The leveled effects of the Amulet of Interrogation are now assigned in the conventional order.

Bugs Introduced

• Because storage containers now have opening and closing animations with physics, items placed placed ontop of desks may sometimes fly off when the desk is activated.
• The HUD and all menus aside from the console may disappear and become inaccessible when unfocusing game window in the PC version.

New Content

The Deluxe Edition includes brand new content for the game, with items based on the aesthetics of Akatosh and Mehrunes Dagon. New quests have been added to receive this content.

• Armor of Order
• Armor of Cataclysm
• Weapons of Order
• Weapons of Cataclysm
• Horse Armor of Order
• Horse Armor of Cataclysm

Character Creation

• References to gender have been removed, with Female and Male body types having been renamed to "Type 1" and "Type 2", respectively.
  • The stats that were formerly determined by gender are now assigned through choosing a location Origin for a character, the options of which differ for each race. The left-hand option reflects the male stats in the original game, while the right-hand option reflects the female stats.
  • In-game dialogue still uses gendered pronouns and forms of address (sire, ma'am) depending on the selected body type, as in the original game.
• Characters can now have facial hair, with a wide variety of styles available. Additionally, many NPCs in the game now sport facial hair.
• Many new eye, hair, and skin/makeup/hair tone options have been added. All eye options are now available to all races.
• Player character height is now the same for every race. NPCs will vary in height depending on their race, but the player character's height is always the same as an Imperial's no matter which race is chosen.
• Every NPC face in the game has been redesigned. Some remain visually faithful to their original appearance, while others have been radically changed, no longer resembling their look in the original game.

Gameplay

General

• Achievements are available for PC and PlayStation players to earn for the first time. Using console commands will disable the ability to earn achievements.
• Health now regenerates outside of combat, just as it does in Skyrim. The rate of regeneration is determined by the player's Endurance.
• The player can now move slowly while over-encumbered, just like in Skyrim, instead of being frozen in place. As in Skyrim, the player is unable to run or sprint while over-encumbered.
• As all downloadable content expansions are enabled by default with no ability to disable them outside of modding, some content that is only present without the DLCs is inaccessible. This includes unique dialogue with Dumania Jirich, Laralthir and Trevaia, who are all killed in original release as soon as Knights of the Nine expansion is enabled.
• Third-person view has been reworked. The camera now sits over the player's shoulder, and the player can now move independently of the camera's direction.
• First-person view while riding a horse has been removed. The player is always viewed in third-person while riding, similar to Skyrim.
• A new Help menu has been added, with guidance on a wide range of topics explaining the game's different mechanics.
• Difficulty settings are now fixed, like in Skyrim, instead of a slider. The available options are now Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master, matching the ranks used for skills and difficulty options in Skyrim.
• Harvestables can no longer fail to harvest ingredients. They also now visually change or vanish to reflect being harvested.
• Smaller harvestables now have activator volumes, giving them a large hitbox interact with instead of requiring precise positioning of the cursor.
• A new setting has been added to enable or disable autosave on loading screens, consistent with modern Bethesda Game Studio releases. The game also now has 5 autosave slots.

Quests

• The tutorial now has additional messaging guiding the player through various different mechanics, including how to use the new Clairvoyance spell. Several messages now pop-up in the corner of the screen, instead of as a prompt that the player must close.
• Quests from downloadable content no longer all begin at once the moment the player leaves the Imperial Prison Sewer following the Tutorial. Instead, they are all started from visiting their respective locations. New rumor dialogue has been added to help guide the player to these destinations, though the rumors can only be heard from characters using new voicetypes.

Locations

• The door in Unmarked Cave that required a non-existent key has been changed to have a Very Easy lock, making the dungeon now legitimately explorable. Unfinished portions of the dungeon have been completed.

NPCs

• NPCs can now repeat their unique initial greetings to the player when engaged in dialogue.
• Several greetings that were unused or rarely used in the original game can now be heard more prominently.
• Ranaline is now a Dark Elf, not a High Elf.

Magic

• A new Clairvoyance spell has been added, guiding the player towards their current objective in a similar fashion to the same spell featured in Skyrim.
• A new Bleed damage effect has been added, and is used for the new Expert Blade perk.
• The bonus for The Lord birthsign has been changed to grant a 15% Shield and 15% Resist Magic constant effect instead of the Blood of the North lesser power and Trollkin ability.

Vampirism

• Vampire appearance is redesigned so instead of the aged and wrinkled appearance of the original, the player's face remains structurally the same with slight alterations such as slightly different eye colour, in the case of Orc, Khajiit and Argonian vampires, Bosmer and Bretons maintain the eye color they had before and it doesn't change, changes include dark circles under the eyes, a slightly pale or very pale change and gaunt appearance. Brows and cheekbones are not pronounced like the original and there is no difference in appearance regardless of vampire stage. Attribute bonuses and weaknesses remain the same.
• The vampire eye color in the original Oblivion, is available as one of the many eye options at character creation.

Stats and Leveling

The leveling system has been overhauled to resolve problems that occurred under the original game's system.

• All skills now contribute to increasing the player character's level, just as in Skyrim. However, Major Skills increase level much faster than Minor Skills, making them the most efficient way to level up.
• Attribute increases are no longer determined by the specific skills the player has raised. Instead, a new system has been implemented:
  • When the player levels up, they are given 12 virtues to distribute amongst their attributes to increase them.
  • Each virtue assigned to an attribute increases it by a single point, however Luck requires 4 virtues to increase by a single point.
  • Up to 5 virtues can be assigned to a single attribute, and only up to 3 different attributes can be increased per level up.
• Endurance attribute increases are now applied retroactively to Health gain when levelling up.
• Enemy scaling as the player increases their level has been adjusted.
• Multiple skills now level up based on the magnitude of performed actions, rather than the number of those actions that are performed.
  • Mercantile experience gain is determined by the price of items sold, instead of being a flat rate for every item sold.
  • Athletics experience is gained more rapidly when sprinting.
  • Magic schools, such as Restoration, Destruction, Mysticism, Illusion, Alteration and Conjuration, now have their experience correlate with the magicka price of the spell cast, meaning more expensive spells now advance the skill level faster, and preventing the strat with casting lowest-magicka spell on repeat.

Perks

Perks have been overhauled, with certain skills now having completely different perks, and others having their perks moved to different ranks. Only the changed ranks/perks are listed below:

Combat Skills

• Armorer
  • Apprentice: Can repair magic items (was a Journeyman perk in the original game).
  • Journeyman: Repair Hammers last twice as long (was an Apprentice perk in the original game).

• Athletics
  • Novice: Regenerates Fatigue 25% more slowly when running.
  • Apprentice: Regenerates Fatigue at a normal rate when running.
  • Journeyman: Consumes 30% less Fatigue while Sprinting.
  • Expert: Consumes 60% less Fatigue while Sprinting.
  • Master: No longer consumes any Fatigue while Sprinting.

• Blade
  • Novice: No longer has any perks.
  • Apprentice: Power attacks deal 20% more damage, and weapons are 20% more durable.
  • Journeyman: Power attacks apply a 15% Weakness to Normal Weapons for 5 seconds.
  • Expert: Regular attacks have a 20% chance to make the target Bleed for 10 seconds.
  • Master: Power attacks apply a 30% Weakness to Normal Weapons for 10 seconds.

• Block
  • Novice: Shields and weapons lose durability when blocking an attack.
  • Apprentice: Shields and weapons no longer lose durability when blocking an attack.
  • Journeyman: Consume 25% less Fatigue when blocking an attack.
  • Expert: Consume 50% less Fatigue when blocking an attack, and perform a Shield Bash that staggers opponents.
  • Master: Consume 75% less Fatigue when blocking an attack, and deal 150% more damage when using Shield Bash.

• Blunt
  • Novice: No longer has any perks.
  • Apprentice: Power attacks deal 20% more damage, and weapons are 20% more durable.
  • Journeyman: Power attacks grant 15% Shield for 5 seconds.
  • Expert: Regular attacks have a 20% chance to apply Silence for 10 seconds.
  • Master: Power attacks grant 30% Shield for 10 seconds.

• Hand-to-Hand
  • Novice: Attacks deal Fatigue damage equal to 50% of Health damage. Cannot recoil opponents when blocking.
  • Apprentice: Power attacks deal 20% more damage, and can now always recoil opponents when blocking.
  • Journeyman: Power attacks have a 25% chance to disarm the opponent.
  • Expert: Attacks deal Fatigue damage equal to 75% of Health damage.
  • Master: Attacks deal Fatigue damage equal to 100% of Health damage.

Magic Skills

• Alchemy
  • Novice: Recognizes only the first alchemical property of a substance (no change), and can only handle 4 simultaneous potion effects.
  • Apprentice: Recognizes the first two alchemical properties of a substance (no change), and 25% chance to craft an additional potion.
  • Journeyman: Recognizes three alchemical properties of a substance (no change), and can handle 6 simultaneous potion effects.
  • Expert: Recognizes all four alchemical properties of a substance (no change), and always crafts an additional potion.
  • Master: Can make potions from a single ingredient (no change), and can handle 10 simultaneous potion effects.

Stealth Skills

• Acrobatics
  • Novice: No longer has any perks.
  • Apprentice: Can Dodge by pressing Block + Jump while moving.
  • Journeyman: Consumes 50% less Fatigue when jumping.
  • Expert: Can jump over the surface of water (was a Master perk in the original game).
  • Master: Consumes 75% less Fatigue when jumping and takes 50% less fall damage.

• Marksman
  • Expert: 10% chance to Paralyze the target for 5 seconds on hit.
  • Master: 25% chance to Paralyze the target for 5 seconds on hit.

• Mercantile
  • Apprentice: Always sell items as if they were in perfect condition (no change). Merchants offer better items.
  • Journeyman: Buy and sell any item to any vendor, even if they usually do not barter that type of wares (no change). Merchants offer even better items.
  • Expert: Can invest in a shop to permanently that merchant's available gold by 500 (no change). Additionally, all shops in the world always have 500 more gold available for barter (was a Master perk in the original game).
  • Master: Buys and sells items for base cost (no change). Merchants offer their best items.

• Security
  • Novice: Up to four tumblers will fall when you fail and break a lockpick. (used to drop all tumblers when breaking a pick)
  • Apprentice: Up to three tumblers will fall when you fail and break a lockpick. (used keep one tumbler when breaking a pick)
  • Journeyman: Up to two tumblers will fall when you fail and break a lockpick. (used keep two tumblers when breaking a pick)
  • Expert: Only one tumblers will fall when you fail and break a lockpick. (used keep three tumblers when breaking a pick)

• Sneak
  • Novice: Sneak Attacks with a Dagger deal 5 times more damage. Sneak Attacks with Bows, one-handed weapons and bare hands deal 2 times more damage.
  • Apprentice: Sneak Attacks with a Dagger deal 8 times more damage. Sneak Attacks with Bows, one-handed weapons and bare hands deal 3 times more damage.
  • Expert: Harder to detect in bright environments.

• Speechcraft
  • Novice: No longer has any perks.
  • Apprentice: Loses disposition 50% less rapidly when trying to persuade a character (was a Journeyman perk in the original game).
  • Journeyman: Gain a free rotation of the a wedge when trying to persuade a character (was an Apprentice perk in the original game).
  • Expert: Bribes cost 50% less (was a Master perk in the original game).
  • Master: Disposition doesn't decrease over time when trying to persuade a character. disposition is also less impacted by the most disliked action.

Locomotion

• The player can now sprint, just as in Skyrim. Sprinting rapidly consumes Fatigue, but perks for the Athletics skill have been changed to reduce Fatigue consumption while sprinting.
• General player locomotion has been overhauled.
  • The player moves faster than in the original game, and velocity is applied to their movement causing it to accelerate and decelerate.
  • Inertia is applied when moving uphill, slowing movement.
  • The surface of water now applies resistance to the player, slowing immersion into water.
  • The player no longer gradually slides down steep slopes and ledges.
• Jumping consumes less Fatigue than in the original game.
• Enemy movement speed has been reduced to add more weight to combat movement.

Combat

Mechanics

Combat has been overhauled, and the player can no longer attack opponents with infinite swings.

• Each melee weapon type now has its own moveset with unique animations, as well as combo attacks with finishing moves. The original movement-based power attacks earned from skill perks have been removed or adapted as part of the new movesets.
• Hit reactions have been added, with opponents animating differently depending on which part of their body was struck by an attack.
• The player can no longer randomly become staggered while blocking. It now only occurs when blocking with Fatigue fully depleted.
• Spells can no longer be cast while blocking.
• Sheathing a Bound Weapon no longer Dispels it.
• New visual and sound effects have been added to make combat more immersive and dynamic.
• A new setting for Aim Assist has been added, but can only be used when playing with a controller.
• Opening a container with a bow drawn now cancels the attack and returns the arrow to the quiver.

Stats

• Damage for daggers and shortswords is now determined by Agility rather than Strength.
• Fatigue is less closely tied with damage calculations and is now step-based instead of linear, and only affects damage when fatigue is very low.
• Projectile speed has been increased.
• Several creatures have had their Fatigue reduced.
• Several arrows have had their damage increased.
• Several weapons have had their reach and damage slightly modified.

Interface

HUD

• The game features a redesigned HUD, resembling the layout used in Skyrim. Vitals (Health, Magicka, and Fatigue bars) are laid out across the bottom of the screen, and are now only visible when these stats are diminished or actively changed. The compass is positioned at the top and center of the display. The player's equipped spell and weapon is positioned in the lower-right corner, and active effects are positioned in the lower-left corner.
• Icons appear next to vitals to indicate broken armor or weapons, and when the player is over-encumbered.
• A progress bar is now displayed in the upper-right corner of the screen when increasing a skill to denote the player's progress towards reaching their next level.
• The sneaking icon now functions similarly to Skyrim, with the eye gradually opening or closing to reflect NPC detection of the player.
• The name of a nearby location is now displayed below the compass when looking in its direction, as well as the distance in steps needed to reach it from the player's current position.
• Similar to Skyrim, entering a location now displays its name in the center of the screen, and discovering a location displays an additional "Discovered" text below the name.
• Map icons can now be filtered to specific types, and each type now has a distinct color to help distinguish between them.
• Items highlighted by the cursor now display a soft white outline.
• Empty containers now display text to indicate they are empty when hovering the cursor over them.
• Loading screens have been completely redesigned and feature new artwork, but in a similar hand-drawn style to the original game's loading screens.

Menus

• The main menu visual has been changed, now depicting an Imperial Legion Soldier in front of a burning Oblivion Gate outside of Kvatch.
• Menus have been redesigned to adapt to modern displays, but retain the same general "journal" aesthetic as the original game. The yellow background tint is no longer present. The pause menu and journal are now part of a single interface that can be easily navigated between, instead of being entirely separate menus.
• The inventory no longer splits items into subcategories. They are now all grouped together in their parent categories.
• Both the player and a merchant/container's inventory can now be viewed at the same time.
  • When opening a container or an NPCs inventory, it is displayed on the left side of the screen. The player's inventory can be toggled to open, displaying on the right side.
  • When bartering with merchants, the player's inventory is displayed on the left side of the screen, and the merchant's inventory on the right.
• In the inventory menu, an expanded details panel can be toggled to display to the right of the menu. One tab shows the item's stats, as well as a 3D preview of the item which can be manipulated to inspect it. A second tab appears for magic and alchemy items to display their effects.
• In inventory menu, the player is able to sort the items by alphabetical order (default), by monetary value, or by weight. Weapons can be sorted by damage, armor can be sorted by armor rating, and items with durability can be sorted by this statistic.
• Iconography and artwork in the interface has been redesigned, staying faithful to the original designs. Item icons are the same as the original game, but have been visually enhanced to improve quality.
• The Active Quests and Current Quests tabs in the journal have been merged into a single Quests tab. The active quest always appears at the top, with a divider separating it from the current quests available to the player listed below it.

Other

• The interface for the Persuasion minigame has been redesigned with distinct colors to denote a character's action preferences. The colors are shown for a character after persuading them for the first time.
• The setting to toggle display of the crosshair on or off has been removed.
• UI text and cursor size can now be adjusted between three different size settings.
• The dialogue camera view is further zoomed out compared to the original game. A new setting has been added to use the standard camera view instead, functioning similarly to Skyrim. However, unlike that game all action in the background will still be paused during dialogue regardless of the setting used.
• All text for the Hand to Hand skill is now formatted as "Hand-To-Hand".

Controls

• Menu shortcuts have been added to the D-Pad for controllers.
  • Pressing up opens the Character menu.
  • Pressing left opens the Magic menu.
  • Pressing right opens the Inventory.
  • Pressing down opens the Map.
• Custom map markers on PC are now pinned by simply pressing the right mouse button on a position on the map, instead of holding Shift and pressing the left mouse button.
• Items are now grabbed by holding the assigned Take Item button over it, instead of being a separate button. Items are now always grabbed and held from the center, instead of from where the crosshair was pointing.

Graphics

• Oblivion Remastered uses Unreal Engine 5 for graphics rendering instead of the original Gamebryo engine. The original engine is still used to handle core gameplay aspects.
• Every model and texture in the game has been redesigned from scratch by hand.
• A new dynamic lighting system has been implemented.
• Reworked visual effects. New visual effects have been added for combat and magic.
  • Light spells use a new visual effect similar to Skyrim, with an orb of light floating around the player that lights up the surrounding area.
• A new blood splatter effect, a low-health vignette, and camera motion (also known as a "bobbing" effect) have been added. All of these effects can be enabled or disabled in the Gameplay settings menu.
• Distant terrain has been reworked, with surrounding mountains generally being taller and more imposing than in the original game. High Hrothgar can be seen on the Throat of the World when looking beyond the border between Cyrodiil and Skyrim.
• LODs have been updated, making certain structures that could not be seen from a distance in the original game (such as Frostcrag Spire) now always visible from afar.
• An aurora is visible at night above the northern border between Cyrodiil and Skyrim.
• Lip-sync animations for NPC dialogue use an entirely new system.
• New environmental visual effects have been added to enhance locations, such as insects flying around outside, and small fish swimming through water.
• Doors and containers are now visually animated when opening them.
• The visual effect used for the Shade of the Revenant is much more intense, red instead of purple, and is clearly visible from a distance.

Audio

• While all of the original voice actors are present, many additional voicetypes have been added. Certain characters have been recast with these new voices, and every race now has a unique voicetype.
• Many new sound effects are used in place of the original sounds.
• A new sound effect now plays when discovering a location, similar to one used in Skyrim.
• New environmental sounds have been added to enhance the soundscape of locations in the game.
• Voices and sound effects now have acoustics, with reverb and volume being affected by the surrounding environment.
• Sound effects in the lockpicking minigame have been made more distinct to make it easier to tell when a tumbler will set in place.
• A crackling flame sound effect has been added to the main menu, to reflect the new key visual.

Technical

• Modding for Oblivion Remastered is not officially supported by Bethesda, however some mods made for the original game are able to work when used with this game.
  • There is no included mod manager to enable or disable plugins. This consequently also means that official downloads cannot be disabled without editing Plugins.txt.
  • As Unreal Engine 5 is now used for graphics rendering, models and textures are read from PAK files. Model and texture files that are loose or packed in BSAs are ignored. The NIF model format is not compatible.
  • Three new ESP files have been added to handle remaster-exclusive content, and should not be disabled:
    • AltarESPMain.esp
    • AltarDeluxe.esp
    • AltarESPLocal.esp
• The Unreal Engine 5 Console Slate Debugger tool replaces the original game's console. It has legacy support for commands used in the original game, however these commands will not be shown as suggestions while typing.
  • Legacy commands can be prefixed with obvConsole to ensure that they are properly recognised (e.g. obvConsole tgm to toggle god mode on or off).
  • Note that certain commands (such as tcl to toggle collision on or off) will be recognised but have no effect due to the original renderer no longer being used.