Good news for Elder Scrolls fans: Skyblivion, an ambitious fan-made recreation of Oblivion within the Skyrim engine, has been given a release window after years of development updates. Skyblivion is an attempt to completely rebuild Skyrim’s predecessor in a modern engine.
Skyblivion’s latest trailer reveals that the project, which has been in development since 2017, is now set for a 2025 release. Although it’s still some way off, it’s reassuring that the mod has a confirmed release window. At this rate, Skyblivion might be out before Elder Scrolls 6.
The sunny horizons of this action RPG, Cyrodiil, make for a welcome change from the harsh, wintery horizons of Skyrim. The trailer also treats us to all sorts of goodies, such as shots of the neoclassical imperial capital, the tower-dominant mansion that sits at its center, and glimpses of the evil assassin’s outfit, the Dark Brotherhood. In the video’s closing moments, we catch a glimpse of Daedric Prince Mehron’s Dagon, Oblivion’s final boss. As terrifying as it may be, this demonic giant must really think he’s wearing a shirt.
beyond the gate
As you might expect, completely recreating The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion within Skyrim isn’t easy. Like the mod Official Website (Opens in a new tab) He puts it: “The gaming industry takes time, [and] This doubles as a volunteer project the size of a AAA game that took a full time team of developers to make.”
The Skyblivion development notes underscore the astronomical work these dedicated fans-turned-developers have done on the project. All of Oblivion’s original 3D assets had to be re-designed, along with each environment individually into a huge map. Even though it was released in 2006, Oblivion is a game of massive scope, full of content.
Skyblivion is part of a group of volunteer projects titled: Renewal of Sheikh’s manuscripts (Opens in a new tab). A collection that aims to recreate all of the modern Elder Scrolls games using modern Bethesda tools. In addition to Skyblivion, TES Renewal hosts the Morroblivion and Skywind projects, mods that bring Morrowind into the Oblivion engine and Morrowind into the Skyrim engine, respectively. Those involved with The Elder Scrolls revamp projects clearly have a lot on their plates.
Oblivion holds a special place in my heart. The game stopped around my 13th birthday, I had just started at a new school and life was pretty scary. Enter: Bethesda’s new open-world RPG. The tutorial’s opening dungeon crawl pulled me in deeply. I played the game relentlessly, and spent hundreds of hours on Cyrodiil. You joined the Fighter’s Guild, explored long lost ruins and, in the end, saved the world.
Oblivion was far from perfect. The voice acting was notoriously hit and miss, and the interwoven systems that made up the RPG’s open world often led to wacky shenanigans. However, I feel there is a certain magic to Cyrodiil that deserves immortality.
Oblivion was a magical game that set the standard for modern open-world experiences and welcomed a whole new generation of RPG players. The prospect of seeing the world of Oblivion realized in modern graphics has me counting down the days of my Elder Scrolls calendar to 2025.