Oblivion Remastered’s Rocky Launch: From 8K Textures to Xbox Performance Woes and Modding Records
The release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has been a rollercoaster, marked by stunning visual enhancements, concerning performance dips, and a record-breaking modding frenzy. Let's delve into the highs and lows of this nostalgic revival.
On one hand, players are already pushing the game's graphical boundaries. Halk Hogan PL, the creator behind the acclaimed The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project, has released impressive 8K texture packs for Oblivion Remastered. These packs, including the "Ultra Quality 8K Body Textures - Imperials," aim to enhance body details, improve skin color, and overall visual fidelity. The 8K texture pack is designed to work in tandem with the Realistic High Quality Skin pack, which boosts human skin textures for all races except Argonians and Khajiits. Furthermore, theSmooth Beautiful Faces pack aims to provide detailed lips and high-quality eyebrows, enhancing the faces of characters of all ages as well but most effective with young female characters.
However, the console experience hasn't been entirely smooth. A detailed analysis by Digital Foundry reveals that Oblivion Remastered's performance on Xbox Series X|S (and PS5) degrades over time, potentially due to a memory leak. The report highlights traversal hitching issues, sub-60fps frame rates, and crashes that become more frequent with extended playtime. Digital Foundry's tests indicated a hotfix in previous month from Virtuos designed to resolve potential performance issues in 60fps mode was ineffective, not improving this issue.
Digital Foundry added that whether on PS5 or Series X, consoles can crash after a certain amount of game time. On PS5 and PS5 pro, freezing always occurred at matching points when save points were reloaded; Xbox Series X would end the process while loading the save file. Re-loading the same save points after a fresh boot would then work.
Despite the performance hiccups, the modding community has embraced Oblivion Remastered with unprecedented enthusiasm. Data suggests it's the fastest game to reach 1,000 mods on Nexus Mods, surpassing Skyrim Special Edition and Starfield. It hit the 1,000 mod mark after 6 days, 19 hours, and 36 minutes. Since the release, the remaster has averaged 123 mods per day.
The original Oblivion took approximately 100 days to reach the same milestone, highlighting the substantial evolution of the modding scene. As early adopters eagerly release important, highly requested mods, it is unlikely that Oblivion's mod output will last. However, it is still a highly impressive achievement.
Oblivion Remastered presents a classic game revitalized for modern platforms, with the visual enhancements offering a fresh perspective. However, the console performance issues raise concerns, and may need to be addressed for a smoother overall experience. Meanwhile, the modding community's swift response demonstrates the enduring appeal and adaptability of the game, setting a new benchmark for post-launch content creation.
Have you experienced the performance issues on consoles? What are your favorite mods for Oblivion Remastered? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!
