The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was not the first game in the series to hit home consoles. Morrowind beat it to the punch when it released on the original Xbox in 2002. Oblivion is, however, the game that made the Elder Scrolls series a big deal on consoles, the way it had been for a long time on home computers. Its huge success was dwarfed by its sequel’s world-beating run, but there are many players out there whose first port of call in Tamriel was via Oblivion. Last year, the game received a remaster on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and Windows. They’ve had to wait a little while longer, but Nintendo Switch 2 owners can now have their own adventures in Cyrodiil via this port of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered.
To answer the big question first, this is a rather faithful port of Oblivion Remastered. That’s particularly the case for handheld players, as there isn’t as much meaningful competition in that category. In docked mode, it’s admirable, but those with more powerful hardware have better options. Still, a person who is interested in Oblivion Remastered could more than get by with what this Switch 2 port offers. It runs reasonably well for what it is, and you’ve even got mouse support in the mix if that’s your control preference. If the mission was to bring the game to the Switch 2 intact, I’d say it was accomplished here.
With that being said, the ways it’s faithful to the Oblivion Remastered experience are not all positive. This remaster makes some big changes to Oblivion’s presentation, but scratch past the surface, and you’ll find much of the original Oblivion at the heart of it all. Almost all of the warts of that original game’s unmodded form are still present here. There are frame-pacing issues, weird physics bugs, and perhaps most importantly, the problems with memory leaks and bloated save files remain. You’ll want to fully quit and reload the game after every hour or so of play to avoid performance issues, and I cannot stress enough that you should not rely on a single save file. It’s unfortunate that none of this was fixed for this Switch 2 release, but in my heart, I didn’t really expect that. Switch 2 owners naturally cannot hope for community fixes either. Such is the console Oblivion experience, same as it ever was.
This does not mean you should not consider picking up Oblivion Remastered, however. It’s just something to keep in mind should you do so. While the game rarely makes the top of the list when people rank Elder Scrolls games, it’s rarely far from it. Basically, if you’ve played and enjoyed Skyrim, you’re going to like what you get here. It offers another huge world map to explore, filled with things to do, sights to see, and trouble to get into. Its mechanics are as shallow or deep as you want them to be, and between the main quest and the included expansions, you’ve got dozens upon dozens of hours of adventuring ahead of you.
Set in the Cyrodiil province of Tamriel, Oblivion has you trying to put a stop to a dangerous cult seeking to open literal gates to… well, Oblivion. It’s not a nice place. Lots of demons. Bitey ones. You need to make sure they can’t carry out their fanatical wishes, lest you disappoint Patrick Stewart. You don’t want to do that. Fortunately, there’s no real rush to do any of this. Heroes in Elder Scrolls games have a habit of getting distracted, and with a map this full of stuff to do and places to visit, it’s easy to see why. Feel free to tackle it as you see fit. If you want to make a beeline to the end, you can stick to the main questline and make use of things like fast travel. If you’d rather mess around with every side-quest and dungeon you stumble across, trudging on foot across every square kilometer of Cyrodiil, go for it.
The mechanics in Oblivion Remastered will be familiar to Elder Scrolls veterans. Combat is real-time, stats and skills level up by performing actions related to them, enemies level up with you, and you can pick up just about anything that isn’t nailed down. There are different races and classes to choose from for your character, and you can design their appearance down to the most minute details. There are plenty of ways to approach situations, so you have a great degree of freedom in how each encounter will play out. It’s not the most balanced of affairs, of course. Particularly with how the enemies’ level scaling works, you can make things easier or harder on yourself depending on your character build. Some methods are going to work better than others, too. It’s been tweaked somewhat in this remaster to avoid more serious issues, but that’s how this kind of system is bound to go at times. Still, even the most difficult of situations usually have a way out if you get creative.
As far as this remaster goes, it takes an interesting approach. Major changes to the mechanics are surprisingly few, but there are minor tweaks all over the place. For the most part, the effect of these changes is that Oblivion Remastered plays more like how people probably remember the 2006 original rather than how it really was. I feel like that was the right call overall. Oblivion’s world isn’t quite as interesting as the games that bookend it, so a lot of its specific charm comes from just how weird it can be. I’m glad that wasn’t buffed out. On the other hand, there are a lot of things people who have been playing Skyrim for ages might forget weren’t in Oblivion. You know, like being able to sprint or use Clairvoyance magic. Those things are here now, along with a much smoother and more functional UI.
The biggest changes are in the presentation, however. Oblivion Remastered looks very much in line with more modern Bethesda game releases, with considerably upgraded models and a lot more graphical detail. It’s also less vibrant than the original game. Can’t say I care for that, but that’s going to come down to individual preferences. Performance in this Switch 2 port is all over the map. Sometimes the game will hit 60 frames per second, while at other times it will struggle to keep 30 frames per second. Those who have issues with variable framerates will not be terribly happy here. As mentioned, there are also some frame pacing issues. Looking at this purely as a remaster, the presentation is mostly a big upgrade across the board. Taken as its own thing, it’s unfortunate that it has as many little hiccups as it does. I’m hoping Bethesda swings around and fixes some things, but in its current form, it can get quite rough in places.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered holds on to the heart of the 2006 original while making a lot of little changes to make it more palatable to modern players. Most of what made that game what it was is still here, even if in some cases you might wish it wasn’t. Performance is scattershot, bugs are everywhere, and even the bits that are working as intended can be quite clumsy at times. Those issues are not specific to this Switch 2 version, which does a very good job of bringing Oblivion Remastered as-is to Nintendo’s platform. Despite its many flaws, Oblivion is an incredible RPG experience even twenty years down the road and should be on the radar of anyone who had a good time with Skyrim.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Bethesda Softworks
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