I remember the first time I stepped out of those damp, lime-crusted sewers into the blinding sunlight of Cyrodiil. It was 2006. My PC was screaming, the fans whirring like a jet engine trying to render the sheer amount of HDR lighting and swaying grass. Honestly, it felt like magic. Even now, nearly two decades later, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion occupies a weird, beautiful space in gaming history that its successor, Skyrim, never quite managed to replicate.
Sure, Skyrim is the "better" game by most modern metrics. It’s more stable. The combat doesn't feel like you're hitting someone with a pool noodle. But Oblivion had soul. It had this bizarre, experimental ambition that Bethesda hasn't really touched since.
The Radiant AI Experiment: Why NPCs Act So Weird
Bethesda marketed "Radiant AI" as this revolutionary system where NPCs had schedules, desires, and lives. In reality? It was chaotic. You’d be walking through Chorrol and see two NPCs get into a death match because one of them tried to steal a piece of ham from the other. It was janky, but it made the world feel reactive.
Most games today use "scripted" AI. An NPC walks from point A to point B because a line of code told them to at exactly 2:00 PM. In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, NPCs were given goals—like "get food"—and the freedom to figure out how to do it. This led to the infamous "Oblivion Dialogue" memes, where characters shift from discussing mudcrabs to screaming about the Gray Fox in a split second.
It's funny. It's awkward. But it makes the towns feel like actual ecosystems rather than static movie sets. You can actually follow a character like Glarthir in Skingrad and see his genuine paranoia play out in real-time, not just in a cutscene.
The Quest Design Peak
Ask any veteran fan about the best quest in the series. They won't say "Go kill 10 dragons." They’ll talk about "Whodunit?"—the Dark Brotherhood quest where you’re locked in a house with five strangers and have to murder them one by one without being suspected. It's basically a slasher movie simulator.
The writing in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was just... bolder.
Take the Thieves Guild. In Skyrim, you’re basically a thug. In Oblivion, you are a phantom. The final quest, "The Ultimate Heist," is a literal hour-long mission involving giant mechanical puzzles, a trip through the sewers, and stealing an Elder Scroll from the heart of the Imperial Palace. It felt earned.
The Mages Guild actually required you to visit every single city to get recommendations before you could even enter the Arcane University. It was a slog, yeah, but it made you feel like you were actually earning your place in a prestigious institution. You weren't just the "Chosen One" five minutes after hitting New Game. You were a nobody.
The Horror of the Oblivion Gates
The main plot gets a lot of flak for being repetitive. Closing your 15th Oblivion Gate starts to feel like a chore. However, the first time you enter one? The sky turns blood-red. The music shifts to this oppressive, rhythmic pounding. The architecture is all jagged metal and fleshy, organic growths.
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It was a stark contrast to the "High Fantasy" look of the rest of the game. Bethesda wasn't afraid to be ugly. They leaned into the Daedric horror, influenced heavily by the planes of Hell in classic literature.
That Infamous Levelling System
We have to talk about the elephant in the room. The levelling system in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is, quite frankly, a disaster. It’s the most unintuitive thing Bethesda ever designed.
If you play the game "normally," you actually get weaker as you level up. Why? Because the enemies scale with you. If you level up your "Major Skills" like Athletics or Acrobatics just by running and jumping around, you’ll hit level 20 with no combat prowess. Meanwhile, the Timber Wolves have been replaced by literal Daedroth and Xivilai that will two-shot you.
To play "optimally," you have to engage in what fans call "Efficient Levelling." This involves tracking every single skill increase on a piece of paper to ensure you get +5 modifiers to your attributes. It’s tedious. It’s a spreadsheet simulator hidden inside an RPG.
Yet, there’s a charm to it. It’s a relic of an era where RPGs didn't hold your hand. You could break the game. You could create "100% Chameleon" gear and become literally invisible, or craft a spell that kills everyone in a 50-foot radius. It was unbalanced, but it was your imbalance.
Shivering Isles: The Greatest DLC Ever?
If the base game was a love letter to Tolkien, the Shivering Isles expansion was a fever dream. Entering through a door made of butterflies into the realm of Sheogorath remains one of the greatest "wow" moments in gaming.
The realm is split between Mania and Dementia.
- Mania: Bright, neon-colored mushrooms and NPCs who are manic and creative.
- Dementia: Gray, swampy, and filled with NPCs who are paranoid and miserable.
The writing here was top-tier. It explored the concept of madness without being too "edgy." It was whimsical and terrifying at the same time. This is where the writers really let loose, moving away from the "save the world" trope to something much more personal and psychological.
Looking Back Through Modern Eyes
If you’re going back to play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion today, you need to prepare for the "Potato Face" phenomenon. The character creator is notorious. It is genuinely difficult to make a character that doesn't look like they were carved out of a wet ham.
But once you look past the bloom lighting that makes everything look like it's glowing with the power of a thousand suns, the world is stunning. The rolling hills of the Great Forest, the snowy peaks of Bruma, and the gold-topped towers of the Imperial City have a sense of scale that still holds up.
How to Actually Enjoy Oblivion in 2026
If you're jumping in for the first time, or returning after a decade-long hiatus, don't play it like a modern action game.
1. Don't rush the main quest. The "Oblivion Crisis" can wait. The real meat of the game is in the guilds and the random encounters. Go to the Gray Mare in Chorrol. Talk to the locals. Buy a house in Benirus Manor (it's cheap for a reason).
2. Lean into the guilds. The Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild storylines are arguably the best Bethesda has ever written. Follow them to the end.
3. Fix the leveling (if you want). If the math of efficient leveling scares you, just turn the difficulty slider down. There’s no shame in it. The slider in Oblivion is extremely sensitive; a small nudge can be the difference between a fair fight and an impossible slog.
4. Explore the capital. The Imperial City is divided into districts. It feels like a living, breathing metropolis. Spend time in the Arena. Bet on the matches, or become the Grand Champion yourself. The "Adoring Fan" is a rite of passage for every player.
5. Get to the Shivering Isles.
Don't wait until the end of the game. You can start it at any level. It is the definitive Oblivion experience.
The game isn't perfect. It's buggy, the voice acting is done by about five different people, and the combat is floaty. But it represents a time when Bethesda was willing to take massive risks with AI and world-building. It has a warmth and a weirdness that Skyrim traded for polish. It’s a messy masterpiece that reminds us why we fell in love with open-world RPGs in the first place.