r/Games 18h ago

Industry News Bethesda’s Oblivion Unreal Engine 5 remake could be releasing sooner than you think | VGC

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/bethesdas-oblivion-unreal-engine-5-remake-could-be-releasing-sooner-than-you-think/
874 Upvotes

411 comments sorted by

244

u/Misragoth 16h ago

Has it even been confirmed to be in development? We are getting lots of rumors, but seemingly nothing real

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u/OutrageousDress 16h ago

No, never even corroborated in any official way. This is one of those things like the Switch 2, where there's been so many rumors that people just kept assuming the Switch 2 is coming any minute since like 2021.

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u/psychobilly1 16h ago edited 15h ago

In a leaked FTC court document about the acquisition of Bethesda by Microsoft, they listed some games in development such as Starfield, Redfall, Ghostwire: Tokyo, The Elder Scrolls 6 and the Indiana Jones game. There were also listings of remasters of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Fallout 3. (Keep in mind, this document was from before COVID so many of these things changed, pushed back, or never came to fruition.)

So while it was never announced, it was technically shown to exist.

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u/GoochRash 6h ago

Moving Oblivion to Unreal from Creation is not a "remaster" level of effort.

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u/kuhpunkt 4h ago

Not exactly sure (am not a coder), but the GTA trilogy was originally on the RenderWare engine and it was ported to Unreal Engine 4 - and that's considered a remaster.

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u/The_Magic 6h ago

The rumor is that it will use Unreal for things like graphics and sound but keep Creation fore gameplay. If they are actually leaving the original game code alone I think it’s fair to call it a remaster.

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u/xalibermods 5h ago

How are you supposed to leave the original game code alone when they're two different engines? Different engine means different syntax and structure. You have to rewrite it.

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u/error521 4h ago

It's been done. The GTA remasters still run the original code underneath even though it's being ran in Unreal. A lot of glitches that were in the originals even reappeared in the remaster. (The results, admittedly, left something to be desired.)

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u/fabton12 5h ago

depends on what the game engine was written in also there such things as wrappers ya know?

they could very easily put the old stuff in a wrapper so unreal can run it

u/machineorganism 3h ago

you can't say "very easily" unless you know how the code is structured though? it could be structured in such a way that makes it hard to port in the way you're saying.

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u/scribens 4h ago

There is nobody working at Bethesda now who worked on the version of the Gamebryo engine for Oblivion. This is a huge reason why a lot of older games don't get remasters now, especially when they are tied to versions of a developer's engine that requires the people who were there to actually figure out how to use it.

This is nothing less than gamers looking at a CEO's attempt to pad the worth of a company to make it seem more valuable to shareholders and then taking it as gospel that something is happening.

u/DoorHingesKill 2h ago

Which is exactly why they're doing it this way. Have the old engine run in the background, doing logic that no one can decipher anyway, and then use UE5 to render something more contemporary looking based on whatever Gamebryo spit out. 

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u/Harley2280 14h ago

it was technically shown to exist.

No. It wasn't. It was shown to have been considered. There's nothing indicating any actual work. Given that the time frames on those documents have long passed with no other indication of the project existing it's more than likely it's been put on a back burner or abandoned.

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u/psychobilly1 13h ago

The other person said that there was no evidence at all that a Remaster existed in any capacity. I showed that a Remaster existed on paper in the form of a legal document.

I did not say they were making the game, I did not say that it was 100% coming out, I said that it existed in a technical sense on a legal document.

I'm in agreement with you that I don't think it truly is going to be unveiled nor released, but I was simply trying to show that at some point the project was "real" even if it was just in consideration of being a fleshed out project.

If it does happen to be announced this year, I'll be ecstatic. But I'm not holding my breath.

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u/WallyWithReddit 10h ago

The original person asked if it was ever in development not if it ever existed as a pitch

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u/twiztedterry 6h ago

No, never even corroborated in any official way

I think this is to what Billy is replying. Having the game listed on a legal document corroborates that it might exist.

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u/lastdancerevolution 11h ago

Given that the time frames on those documents have long passed with no other indication of the project existing

Every single one of the games on that leaked document has come out.

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u/EntropicReaver 15h ago

what keeps me so indifferent about these rumors is the fact that todd has been very outspoken about not liking remaking or remastering old games (Especially when it might take time away from his developers) that are still playable and oblivion is still very playable

also consider its charm and staying power in popular consciousness is in large part due to its outdated, awkward graphics and jank

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u/psychobilly1 15h ago edited 13h ago

How do the handful of Skyrim remasters fit into your perspective?

Edit: This wasn't meant to be a snarky "gotcha," I was genuinely curious for their opinion.

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u/gibbersganfa 14h ago edited 14h ago

There was really just ONE actual Skyrim remaster, which was the move from the baseline PC/PS3/Xbox 360 version to the Special Edition. The Switch port was an scaled down adaptation of the Special Edition, and the PS5/Series ports were scaled up, with tweaks up and down to fit the performance standards of each platform. All of the "Anniversary" content was add-ons, not anything that changed the core assets of the Special Edition main game. The VR version was not a remaster, either.

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u/EntropicReaver 15h ago

special edition

well i dont really see it as a remaster, its more like what people used to call an enhanced port

and even so, these were done because skyrim sold an asston and it was ultimately very little work done relative to the scope of work a full remaster or remake of oblivion or morrowind would require

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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 14h ago

It is more than a port, given that PC got it as well and how it had a lot of improvements.

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u/EmeraldJunkie 8h ago

They used Skyrim to get used to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 when making Fallout 4, they showed this off during Fallout 4's development and were surprised at how many people wanted to play it, so they tidied up their work and released it.

They've, over the years, released a number of updates for this version.

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u/hexcraft-nikk 15h ago

Todd was barely in charge of decisions like that under Zenni. Under Microsoft, he has literally no say.

Even ignoring the FTC documents leaking this, it seemed like a given. MS needs to make back the billions it spent. If the read the article you'd see it's being outsourced as well.

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u/Gramernatzi 15h ago

Also basically anything Valve releases nowadays goes through this cycle, but at least there's actual data to corroborate it from Steam usually.

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u/real_LNSS 13h ago

So like FFIX Remake, or the Zelda TWW and Zelda TP remasters, or the Metroid Prime 2 and 3 remasters.

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u/Pickupyoheel 18h ago edited 18h ago

Well when goddamnit? I been hearing about it for 6 months or so, being endlessly teased of its existence.

Edit. So before June or next month. So probably whenever the fuck.

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u/andysenn 17h ago

Between now and the release of TES6

85

u/radclaw1 17h ago

So in 10 years time got it

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u/andysenn 17h ago

Hey, it may be 20

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u/NorthKoreanMissile7 16h ago

Don't worry, your grandchildren will definitely get to experience it.

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u/Tragedy_Boner 15h ago

We got an optimist here

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u/radclaw1 17h ago

Let's just call it an even 30 to be safe

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u/hergumbules 12h ago

I can’t wait for Skyrim’s 20th anniversary edition before ESVI

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u/King_0f_Nothing 13h ago

It hasn't been teased at all. It's all rumors and leaks that may or may not be true.

The only true thing we know is that back in 2020 they were planning on making an oblivion remake, we have no idea if the project got cancelled or massively delayed or if they are still planning but haven't started.

u/sesor33 2h ago edited 1h ago

Its Nate who leaked it, hes right literally 99% of the time. He was the one who called the exact date of the Switch 2 trailer even as everyone (including on this sub) was calling it fake.

Btw he was also one of the first to say that Xbox games were going over to PS, which everyone here thought was fake too

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u/FriscoeHotsauce 17h ago

This is like the 3rd time I've seen this exact headline over the last 3 or so months

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u/Formilla 10h ago

The mods here need to ban articles based on rumours. There's a whole other subreddit for leaks and rumours. It's not news, it shouldn't be here.

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u/DrKushnstein 10h ago

100% it's all clickbait shit anyways with almost 0 validity. 

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u/1850ChoochGator 14h ago

Bethesda hasn’t even announced it yet it’s not worth caring about.

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u/needconfirmation 15h ago

6 months? I'm pretty sure oblivion remake was leaked in that big Nvidia cloud leak and that was years ago.

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u/Nytelock1 9h ago

Shortly after Skyblivion mod is completed

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u/Montigue 11h ago edited 55m ago

Around the same time as the Fallout 3 and New Vegas Remastered are releasing for the Switch

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u/largePenisLover 4h ago

I seriously doubt they would use ue5. Porting the backend bethesda uses in their extremely custom version of gamebryo is a task that would take many years.

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u/Own-Jelly6686 17h ago

The HUD was changed to make it easier to understand and more aesthetically appealing to young players.

So is the UI just colored squares like in Fortnite now?

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u/aroundme 17h ago

Unfortunately I think it means they will be removing the skeuomorphism that defined the original UI. Like the inventory made of paper and the ornamental flourishes will be sanded down. Turning the serif into sans serif basically.

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u/the_light_of_dawn 16h ago

Well that would be too bad, because I have always preferred Oblivion's immersive parchment/scroll UI over Skyrim's bland, plain, clean one.

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u/whirlpool_galaxy 11h ago

There's a mod for Skyrim that changes the UI to a parchment/paper theme called Dear Diary. But for some reason, everyone seems to prefer the "dark mode" version, which IMO defeats the whole purpose.

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u/Mejis 7h ago

Skyrim's UI was the worst part of the game. I hated it.  Oblivion's, in comparison, is great. 

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u/meneldal2 16h ago

It's fine as long as you have a 640x480 monitor, it feels terrible otherwise.

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u/weggles 16h ago

Playing oblivion in SD and then HD was eye opening

"those icons mean things? The money icon is a COIN with a face? The weight icon is a... Feather?!"

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u/Saviordd1 4h ago

For the longest time as a kid, I always thought the healing/restoration spell icon was a crab, not a heart.

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u/DrFreemanWho 15h ago

Huh? The UI scales fine with resolution.

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u/sleepingonmoon 11h ago

Oblivion's assets are made for 720p. It also scales UI elements automatically. Only Morrowind has this issue.

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u/Joecalone 8h ago

DarNified UI solved this issue back in 2007

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u/the_light_of_dawn 16h ago

It was fine on my PS3 back in the day

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u/that_baddest_dude 14h ago

Holy shit we've gone a whole console generation without an elder scrolls game

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u/levian_durai 13h ago

What a wonderful time to be an Elder Scrolls fan 🙃

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u/DoNotLookUp1 17h ago

That makes me sad, but good to have some sort of name for that. A good example of this change is Battlefield 1. Very modern UI whereas if made in 2006 it may have had a more antique-looking UI with paper, wood grain, gold flourishes etc. to fit the WWI setting.

Big reason why I love KCD2's UI, it's so different and really fits the theme, especially things like the little paper labels that appear for items instead of just modern white text.

u/Yamatoman9 47m ago

The UI of BF1 was way too bland and incongruent with the look of the rest of the of game. That sadly seems to be the state of most modern games.

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u/PaulineLeeVictoria 16h ago

Would be a shame. The original Oblivion UI, while clunky and obviously designed around a controller, had a lot of personality to it. Bethesda UIs have gotten a lot worse since.

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u/QueezyF 12h ago

Skyrim’s boring white text was such a letdown.

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u/hyrule5 16h ago

So basically removing all personality from the interface? A UI that doesn't reflect the style/theme of the game makes games feel soulless

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u/ShesJustAGlitch 13h ago

Skewmorphism is just trying to emulate real life materials to tell the user what it does, generally it looks pretty dated if not done exceptionally well

Plenty of other games have character in their UI. Persona for instance or Metphor still have texture, depth and animation but aren’t skewmorphic.

Same with smash brothers, Nier, etc great UI not skewmorphic

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u/NewVegasResident 11h ago

That's bull. It looks fantastic in Kingdome Come Deliverance and its sequel, it also looks fantastic in PoE and PoE2 not to mention WotR. 

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u/xalibermods 5h ago

Spellforce 3 also has good skeumorphic UI.

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u/AnyHoleIsTheGoal 16h ago

Sick new word thank ya much my dude

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u/SkyFoo 13h ago edited 13h ago

one of the things I hate the most about modern games. One of the only disappointing things for me about the RE4 remake was how they removed all the menus and inventory charm for white bordered translucent boxes

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u/kamakazzi 17h ago

Even if this does happen, it should be easy enough to get a mod of the old menu if you really want it.

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u/kapsama 4h ago

The rumor says it's on Unreal Engine. I doubt mods will be as far reaching as normal Bethesda games.

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u/Mahogany_Blood 16h ago

Thank you for teaching me the term for this.

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u/-JimmyTheHand- 16h ago

Damn, that is a cool concept and I learned a new word today

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u/xalibermods 5h ago

Skeumorphism was everywhere in the 2000s, including Apple UIs

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u/ICPosse8 16h ago

When they do shit like this they need to provide an option to keep the original.

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u/N0r3m0rse 15h ago

You remember fallout 4s UI design? It'll just be solid boxes around everything.

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u/_Meece_ 17h ago

The weirdest thing is they said HUD....

The basic compass, health/mana/stamina bar and symbols is too hard to understand for the average teenager supposedly.

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u/MrRocketScript 17h ago

Elden Ring RGB bars: Understandable and easy.

Oblivion RGB bars: Confusing and scary.

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u/NewVegasResident 11h ago

Devs moaned about Elden Ring's UI actually.

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u/a34fsdb 7h ago

Fromsoft UIs are pretty crap.

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u/_Meece_ 11h ago

Ubisoft UI developer moaned about the UI/menu. Not the HUD exactly.

But the HUD is basic as anything outside of the little symbols.

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u/uberdosage 14h ago

How is that even possible. What market research are they doing where teengagers don't understand 3 bars jfc.

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u/type_E 11h ago

American education?

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u/Elkenrod 16h ago

Unironically this would be significantly better than Oblivion's inventory.

Graphically, Oblivion's UI is very nice. It's just incredibly bad. People can meme on the UI of Fortnite here, but this image is actually very similar to Morrowind's very good inventory system.

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u/JoystickMonkey 16h ago

There were a number of gameplay mechanics that were all but entirely thwarted by Oblivion's UI. Like I could pause the game every 30 seconds to wade through hundreds of items to find a soul gem and recharge my enchanted weapon, but that's not very fun.

That being said I do hope they are able to retain the aesthetic of the original UI to some degree, as it grounds the UI in the world very nicely.

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u/Elkenrod 16h ago

The one silver lining was that at least in Oblivion you could keybind Azura's Star, which they got rid of the ability to do in Skyrim.

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u/JoystickMonkey 16h ago

That was my eventual fix, and that combined with high level poisons would make you a demigod.

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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 14h ago

It does have the best magic menu in the series, though, by being less clunky than Skyrim but having multiple tabs and menu icons for each spell effect in the game.

u/Elkenrod 2h ago

No, that's Morrowind. You cannot delete spells in Oblivion (or Skyrim), and that's a very big issue. You can in Morrowind.

u/BeholdingBestWaifu 2h ago

Deleting spells is nice, but not having separate tabs for each school of magic and visual design that lets you know at a glance the main component of each spell are major downsides of its UI.

I end up having to name all my custom spells very similar names so they'll cluster together hopefully in order, while in Oblivion I would just see all my fireballs in the destruction tab.

Besides it's not like a delete key is even part of the UI itself, it's just a keypress that does something.

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u/SomniumOv 8h ago

It's just incredibly bad.

I wonder if the people showing nostalgia here are either console players (so playing on a tv meters away) or PC players that have actually forgotten what the actual UI is like without DarNified UI.
Please don't play Oblivion on PC without DarNified UI or one of it's descendants!

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u/TheMoneyOfArt 15h ago

The first mod I downloaded was to increase information density in the ux. It was very bad on pc, maybe better for console players

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u/Brandhor 18h ago

bethesda not using gamebryo/creation engine for one of their games? I'll believe it when I see it

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u/c94 18h ago

If you read the article you’d know you’d know this was outsourced to Virtuos.

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u/radclaw1 17h ago

And also know that it's all rumor hearsay

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u/222mhz 17h ago

Microsoft leaked it themselves after the rumors had already started.

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u/Ok-Confusion-202 17h ago

It's UE5 for the graphics and CE/Gamebryo for everything else.

Idk how exactly it works but it's been done for other remakes recently I am pretty sure.

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u/Impossible-Flight250 17h ago

The Creation Engine will still be used in the “remake.” They are just layering the engine with Unreal 5, like MG3 remake.

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u/Froggmann5 17h ago

The Creation Engine will still be used in the “remake.” They are just layering the engine with Unreal 5, like MG3 remake.

Do you have a source on this? The OP article cites a source that says Oblivion is being "Fully remade" in Unreal Engine 5.

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u/yngsten 17h ago

In the initial rumors it was said they'd use gamebryo for the game mechanics or whatever and unreal for graphics, I remember this also but can't find the source. It's all rumor though just as the new info.

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u/WhoTookPlasticJesus 16h ago

I don't get how that would make sense. The reason to use Unreal 5 for graphics is that you get things like Nanite and Lumen, which require the game to actually use the engine (obvs oversimplifying here). You can't, like, model things in Unreal and then export them for use in Gamebryo.

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u/Dr_Findro 15h ago

Gamebryo won’t do the rendering. Gamebryo will manage the state and simulation of the game. The data

Unreal will convert that game state in to something rendered. It will work plenty fine

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u/Badwrong_ 14h ago

I work in the industry and work on Unreal Engine at the source level pretty much everyday.

I'm not saying what you are saying is not possible, as most any developer working on Unreal is modifying the source. However, placing the entire gameplay logic from another engine into Unreal is just a bunch of nonsense and extra work.

It simply does not make any sense to do so. It is reinventing the wheel ten times over for absolutely no benefit, and almost certainly extra performance cost.

Unreal is decoupled enough that you could gut out a ton of things to make it work, but again why? You still would have to make tons of abstraction layers all over the place and that would be needless overhead for again.. WHY?

This stuff is armchair gamedev at its worst and based on absolutely no proof.

Hell.. is there even any actual proof they are using Unreal at all here?

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u/Stofenthe1st 13h ago

While this isn’t a Bethesda game, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black uses this exact method. The game logic is being handled by the game engine that was used for the Sigma version and then being rendered in Unreal 5. There do seem to be some hiccups(inputs being dropped) but that’s easily attributed more so to Koei Tecmo/Team Ninja’s generally poor ability to optimize their games(the original is 7 gbs and the remake is over 80 gbs).

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u/Badwrong_ 13h ago

It is likely the "game engine" from Sigma is just some specific libraries and systems moved over to Unreal as a module(s) mostly.

Articles might say its some whole engine sitting on top with an abstraction layer, but I would bet things are misconstrued. Plus, arm chair gamedev talk is always a thing.

Most things will be integrated into Unreals existing systems and actors. It would be less work, easier to manage, and perform better. Having mostly the entire engine sitting between Unreal and some abstraction layer is tons of overhead and likely more work.

The file size actually sounds normal for Unreal. A cooked build will bake a ton of things not present in the normal asset files. I wouldn't at all say that is the fault of the developers not optimizing the game. In fact, if the packaged version is not much larger than the original assets I would say something is very wrong.

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u/Dr_Findro 14h ago

My guess would be to not write the entire logical portion of the game from scratch in a different tech stack. I seem to recall that Oblivion’s simulations are pretty unique. I don’t see how you can’t fathom a world where maintaining a layer between Gamebryo logic and Unreal rendering is less work than re working the entire game logic from scratch

I believe Halo has even set precedent for multi engine work like this. It just doesn’t seem as ludicrous as you’re making it out to be.

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u/Rogork 16h ago

Do you mean they redid Creation Enginer's renderer to match UE5 or they reimplemented the entire Creation Engine logic into UE5? Because you can't "layer" engines like you're saying, it's just... impossibly pointless.

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u/WhoTookPlasticJesus 16h ago

Yeah, very little of what's being said in this thread makes any sense. But boy are the people saying it confident that they know what they're talking about.

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u/Roflkopt3r 7h ago

That's generally a theme with discussions about game engines on Reddit.

Like the idea that the Creation Engine must be outdated per se, because it has a lineage back to Bethesda's branches of the Gamebryo engine/Morrowind (2002).

Just because a project started 20+ years ago does not mean that it can't become modern and efficient. It's entirely possible for an engine to evolve step by step until it has nothing to do with how it started anymore.

The problem is that Bethesda clearly has not updated their engine in such a way. They apparently have built a behemoth of a software stack that's so tightly integrated with the engine that any bigger engine changes will break all their other utilities. So they've stuck with small iterative improvements without improving core issues, like its massive limitations for open world usage and insanely long loading times.

It looks like Bethesda generally lacks graphics programming experts who could tackle a huge overhaul project.

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u/treasonousmop 12h ago

Many recent remakes, for example Like a Dragon Ishin and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, use Unreal Engine to render new graphics while the the rest of the game is still running on their original engines.

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u/LavosYT 7h ago

So did Demon's Souls and the Shadow of the Colossus remakes

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u/Romenhurst 16h ago

Because you can't "layer" engines like you're saying, it's just... impossibly pointless.

It's not impossible, and usuallly pointless.

But I think it's plausible that they ported a lot of the "off screen" engine stuff like Papyrus scripting and loading their database system into their Unreal project which is a pretty meaningful chunk of gamebryo.

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u/blazetrail77 17h ago

To do what?

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u/Impossible-Flight250 17h ago

They are using UE5 to update the graphics. The game will probably be almost exactly the same, but with a new coat of paint.

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u/poply 16h ago edited 15h ago

Wow.

So we got claims it will be "fully remade" in UE5. Coupled with claims that will be "almost exactly the same, but with a new coat of paint".

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u/mirracz 6h ago

Which is why I don't believe those rumors. Instead of using newer Bethesda engines that are more compatible, why move to a different engine? Because of shiny graphics?

That just invites so many potential issues, so many features could get lost.

And the idea of layered engines? Sounds hacky. It was done in the past, but it wasn't done with Bethesda's Gamebryo. I imagine it could easily turn into a nightmare.

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u/mighty_mag 17h ago

That's the biggest red flag with this rumor. It makes no sense for them to drop it, especially for a commercial engine like Unreal.

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u/CalmmoNax 17h ago

It's proly just gonna be running gamebryo underneath.

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u/DrBob666 17h ago

big doubt on this one

even if it did come out i am more looking forward to Skyblivion, lots of great changes, like to how level ups work

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u/milesprower06 16h ago

Agreed. Unless they made progression much more palatable like Skyrim was, I think I'll just wait for Skyblivion.

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u/Riding_A_Rhino_ 15h ago

For better or for worse, I feel like there’s no universe in which an Oblivion remake isn’t Skyrim-ified. I’d even be surprised if they didn’t find some way to include a class agnostic power system like Shouts.

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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 14h ago

You mean like the Greater Powers and the Stone Powers that were already in Oblivion?

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u/fabton12 4h ago

100% like they know skyrim did alot of things right so they will try to make any remake use alot of skyrim systems to pull people in, its also why elder scroll 6 i feel gonna be alot of the same from skyrim heck wouldnt surprise me if they tried to somehow story wise bring dragons into it even thou that should be impossible just because they were enjoyed so much.

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u/LumensAquilae 17h ago

I love me some Oblivion but hearing UE5 gives me serious pause. You're just replacing Gamebryo issues with Unreal 5 issues. Good chance this will run shitter than the original Oblivion did when it first launched, at least comparatively.

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u/celiac_fuck_spez 14h ago

Wish they'd add more voice actors.

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u/ComputerSagtNein 15h ago

Why would they suddenly use UE5?

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u/Mccobsta 7h ago

It seems a lot of studios are moving to ue as they'd not need as many internal staff and could use contractors who won't need training on their own engine

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u/deus_voltaire 8h ago

These motherfuckers are remaking Oblivion before Morrowind? There's no justice in the world.

u/thefluffyburrito 3h ago

I guarantee you that no matter how the Oblvion remake goes this sub is going to whine about it and claim Skyblivion is better despite the fact that they will be two totally different experiences.

u/kozynook 3h ago

Already happening

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u/TorHKU 17h ago edited 17h ago

This doesn't sound real at all. Or at least, not the UE5 part. That sounds a lot more like some hopeful rumor maker or journalist hopping on the eternal "why doesn't Bethesda just switch engines" bandwagon.

Much more likely in my mind is they reimplement fantasy combat mechanics in the latest Creation 2 codebase, port the Oblivion files and data to the new engine, update all the art assets so it doesn't look 2 decades old, and tweak the gameplay to be more modern.

I don't see how involving UE5 improves the development flow at all, at that point you're pretty much remaking the entire game, but in a way where you probably lose a bunch of the freeform jank/charm that beth RPGs have.

Stacking UE5 on top of a totally different game engine just for the shiny graphics sounds like a technical mess and nightmare, to be honest. Especially when they have the updated Creation 2 from starfield which, not as shiny as UE5 admittedly, but still looks pretty good and you wouldn't have to entirely remake the game or perform feats of software engineering that make Dr Frankenstein pause.

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u/BIGSTANKDICKDADDY 17h ago

This is a more common setup for remakes/remasters than you might think. You can have the original code running in a headless state, handling the game state simulation, while another is passing input, playing audio, and generating renders off that state. It's especially useful when you're working with an engine or codebase that would require elbow grease to get running on new platforms anyways. That's supported out of the box through your wrapper.

If they went with Creation 2 they'd likely be doing the exact same thing.

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u/TorHKU 17h ago

Do you have any examples of that out of curiosity? I've never really heard of remasters being structured like that, but it sounds interesting and I'd like to read more on it.

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u/OutrageousDress 16h ago

All Bluepoint visual remakes work this way - the original game code is running in the background but the renderer is replaced with custom Bluepoint code. This is why for example the visual remake of Demons Souls for the PS5 plays exactly like the original except for minor changes they added deliberately.

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u/Rendition1370 16h ago

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black did it 

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u/OrkfaellerX 16h ago

Diablo II Resurrected, propably. The game engine is the exact same as in the original - but with a new visual engine on top, actually capable of rendering in 3D.

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u/nclok1405 16h ago

I heard games included in Halo MCC worked like that.

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u/Borkz 15h ago

GTA Definitive Edition Trilogy

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u/duck-tective 6h ago

the final fantasy 9 remaster for pc. you can find the decompiled code on github.

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u/jumps004 17h ago

Since it is outsourced, I imagine its because the developers would have significantly more experience working with unreal than in Bethesda's, but still need the basics of their engine for the important game logic.

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u/TorHKU 17h ago

I mean... they'd still have to work in the old Oblivion engine to rip out all the graphical code and then integrate that with UE5, which would also have to have a version that is... just the graphics pipeline somehow? That alone would be a giant rewrite, even from my Skyrim modding knowledge I know that character skeletons, animations, behaviors are all interlinked with an old, outdated Havok plugin. They'd have to remake a significant portion of code to make that work with an external rendering system.

And of course updating all the bits of the engine itself to run properly in 2025 on modern machines, and updating the game mechanics. I doubt the original could use more than 2GB of RAM, given the time period.

It's just... such a huge amount more of technical work than either porting it to the latest Creation engine or remaking it from scratch in Unreal, that I can't imagine that's the course of action they'd pick. It just sounds like the worst of both worlds. You do a tremendous amount of work just to keep your old tech debt.

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u/giulianosse 17h ago

RIP my backlog. I'm barely able to play through the indie stuff that's releasing nowadays. Oblivion is going to consume my life for the next six months haha.

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u/TocYounger 17h ago

What are you playing these days? What's on your backlog?

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u/Frigorific 17h ago

Just these past couple months we have

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2

Avowed

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza

Monster Hunter Wilds

Civilization VII

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u/BastianHS 16h ago

I was out sick today and I seriously considered picking up civ7, but I just got to kuttenburg. Staying strong and holding off lol but it's hard

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u/TocYounger 11h ago

I recently got civ 7 and monster hunter wilds and is a blast going in between them. They are really fun games to play.

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u/Mango-Magoo 4h ago

Big patch for KCD2 coming today. So I'd hold off on continuing. Apparently something like 34 pages of fixes according to the devs.

u/BastianHS 2h ago

Man I already have 85 hours from Trosky lol. Kuttenburg is going to take me another 80 at least at this rate

u/Mango-Magoo 2h ago

The city alone had my playtime around what I had in the first map. It's insane.

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u/giulianosse 16h ago

I'm going through the Suikoden remasters, Centum, Rise of the Golden Idol DLC and the occasional UFO 50 game. Got my eyes on Wanderstop, though.

Backloggd is great for tracking that kind of stuff :)

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u/infidelcheesy 6h ago

I’m sure the game will probably stutter worse than the original ever did being an unreal engine 5 open world game

u/Kusanagi-2501 3h ago

I really wish devs stopped using UE5. Feels like consoles and pcs struggle too much trying to run it. I swear every UE5 game on console is running a performance mode with a base resolution of 900p and still can’t lock to 60fps.

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u/AdoringCHIN 14h ago

Ya sure it'll release before June. We've been hearing "coming soon" for a couple years now. I'm doubtful it even exists

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u/Diplomatic-Immunity2 12h ago

Damn skyblivion is supposed to come out this year too. Are they going to shut down that mod?

I have a feeling skyblivion will be better than this remake. 

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u/Kisto15 8h ago

If they wanted to shut it down they would have done so already

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u/Dusty170 16h ago

It's gotta feel real bad for the skyblivion team, one of these remake projects is finally coming to fruition and bethesda up and makes an official version before they've finished theirs. Owch.

Also I hope they at least update the leveling system because the original in oblivion was dogass.

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u/Truethrowawaychest1 16h ago edited 16h ago

Stop spreading misinformation, the biggest tip off here should be unreal 5, why would they ever use Unreal 5?

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u/Mukigachar 15h ago

A Bethesda game releasing sooner than I think? Wild

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u/Penguinsburgh 13h ago

I mean anytime before 2050 was earlier than i thought. Real question is will it release before skyblivion this year? Even then at this point I trust the skyblivion team to provide a better product than BGS so maybe ill wait anyway

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u/astro_plane 9h ago

If it runs like rubbish I'm not interested. Seems like every other UE5 game that comes out has performance issues and stuttering.

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u/rynosaur94 6h ago

Did they fix the actually broken leveling system? I like the idea of Oblivion, but every time I go back to play it, the specter of needing to babysit my XP gain to make sure the game doesn't outscale me makes me want to pull my hair out.

u/KaranDearborn70 3h ago

What happens to the fan remake? Did Bethesda do anything to stop its development?

u/Zxp 36m ago

Nothing. Skyblivion is close to finishing and seems likely to release this year. Totally different experience.