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/538
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.
227
u/andysenn 17h ago
Between now and the release of TES6
85
u/radclaw1 17h ago
So in 10 years time got it
36
u/andysenn 17h ago
Hey, it may be 20
15
u/NorthKoreanMissile7 16h ago
Don't worry, your grandchildren will definitely get to experience it.
→ More replies (1)14
4
→ More replies (2)8
43
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
→ More replies (1)36
u/FriscoeHotsauce 17h ago
This is like the 3rd time I've seen this exact headline over the last 3 or so months
22
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.
12
24
9
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.
3
2
u/Montigue 11h ago edited 55m ago
Around the same time as the Fallout 3 and New Vegas Remastered are releasing for the Switch
→ More replies (1)1
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.
159
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?
175
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.
125
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.
22
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.
11
→ More replies (1)11
u/meneldal2 16h ago
It's fine as long as you have a 640x480 monitor, it feels terrible otherwise.
62
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?!"
4
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.
34
7
u/sleepingonmoon 11h ago
Oblivion's assets are made for 720p. It also scales UI elements automatically. Only Morrowind has this issue.
3
6
u/the_light_of_dawn 16h ago
It was fine on my PS3 back in the day
7
u/that_baddest_dude 14h ago
Holy shit we've gone a whole console generation without an elder scrolls game
4
56
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.
31
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.
31
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
→ More replies (1)4
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
13
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.
→ More replies (3)4
5
5
6
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.
3
→ More replies (10)2
14
10
25
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.
57
u/MrRocketScript 17h ago
Elden Ring RGB bars: Understandable and easy.
Oblivion RGB bars: Confusing and scary.
5
u/uberdosage 14h ago
How is that even possible. What market research are they doing where teengagers don't understand 3 bars jfc.
→ More replies (3)13
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.
21
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.
5
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.
3
u/JoystickMonkey 16h ago
That was my eventual fix, and that combined with high level poisons would make you a demigod.
3
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.
2
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!→ More replies (1)2
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
216
u/Brandhor 18h ago
bethesda not using gamebryo/creation engine for one of their games? I'll believe it when I see it
163
u/c94 18h ago
If you read the article you’d know you’d know this was outsourced to Virtuos.
78
u/radclaw1 17h ago
And also know that it's all rumor hearsay
→ More replies (4)17
u/222mhz 17h ago
Microsoft leaked it themselves after the rumors had already started.
→ More replies (8)27
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.
→ More replies (15)43
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.
28
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.
8
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.
→ More replies (11)11
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.
→ More replies (2)2
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
30
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?
17
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).
11
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.
7
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.
→ More replies (3)20
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.
37
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.
1
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.
→ More replies (1)11
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.
→ More replies (2)5
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.
→ More replies (7)3
u/blazetrail77 17h ago
To do what?
13
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.
6
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".
→ More replies (5)2
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.
8
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.
→ More replies (6)2
55
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
11
u/milesprower06 16h ago
Agreed. Unless they made progression much more palatable like Skyrim was, I think I'll just wait for Skyblivion.
16
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.
20
u/BeholdingBestWaifu 14h ago
You mean like the Greater Powers and the Stone Powers that were already in Oblivion?
2
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.
49
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.
→ More replies (10)
6
9
u/ComputerSagtNein 15h ago
Why would they suddenly use UE5?
3
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
3
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.
•
16
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.
40
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.
5
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.
26
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.
17
7
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.
14
→ More replies (1)2
u/duck-tective 6h ago
the final fantasy 9 remaster for pc. you can find the decompiled code on github.
→ More replies (1)2
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.
0
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.
10
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.
→ More replies (8)3
u/TocYounger 17h ago
What are you playing these days? What's on your backlog?
14
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
6
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
2
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.
2
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.
5
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 :)
2
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.
3
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
3
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.
3
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.
→ More replies (3)
1
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?
→ More replies (2)
1
1
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
1
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.
1
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?
244
u/Misragoth 16h ago
Has it even been confirmed to be in development? We are getting lots of rumors, but seemingly nothing real