Following the re-release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with upgraded visuals on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, many fans have been hoping Bethesda would give its predecessor, Oblivion, the same treatment. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be happening, according to Bethesda.
Speaking to the Official Xbox Magazine UK (posted online by GamesRadar), Bethesda vice president Pete Hines said that a smaller amount of work needed on both titles led to both Dishonored’s Definitive Edition and Skyrim’s Special Edition.
He stressed that Skyrim remastered happened because they adapted its engine to build Fallout 4 on modern hardware, and that this was basically a one-off.
“We did [a remaster] for Dishonored but that was a unique case where it was a new IP at the very end of the last generation of consoles,” Hines said to OXM. “So remastering it and bringing it to this gen wasn’t a ton of work and it made a lot of sense given the proximity of those two.
“Skyrim was more about the work that Bethesda Game Studios had done in the early days of getting ready for Fallout 4 on this generation of consoles—moving the Skyrim engine and doing some work to run it on this generation of consoles just to see how it worked, and so forth, before they started doing all their Fallout stuff. It’s the most recent thing they did.”
Finally, Hines explained that mods for Skyrim on consoles “seemed like a pretty cool idea,” when talking up Fallout 4’s console mod support. “But these things take time, it takes effort and manpower,” Hines said. “Generally speaking, our approach has usually been that instead of spending all this time on a thing we’ve already made, why don’t we instead spend that effort on something new, or on the next version of that thing?”
CrabCombat
January 12, 2017 at 11:24 amWhat would they even do for a remastered Oblivion? Turn the bloom up until it’s just a white screen?
Mr0303
January 12, 2017 at 11:28 amTranslation they don’t want to put the extra work to remake any other games in the series.
BlueLight
January 12, 2017 at 11:51 amno duh.Honestly, i wouldn’t if i were them. Lets assume switching the graphics and physics engine was as simple as changing some files (Never is), then the script engine would require someone to go in by hand and reprogram each and every script. The script for Skyrim and Oblivion are vastly different.
But okay, lets ignore the script engine. That can stay the same. Some captain obvious would say “…They don’t want to put the extra work to remake any other game…”
Mr0303
January 12, 2017 at 11:55 amSo your point is that it takes more work to remaster older games? Talk about captain obvious…
Travis Touchdown
January 12, 2017 at 12:09 pmBethesda needs to #MakeTheSwitch
Neojames82
January 12, 2017 at 12:28 pmThe fan made mods already out for Oblivion would out pace anything Bethesda could do anyway.
catazxy
January 12, 2017 at 12:34 pm“Talent and effort are things we no longer have so remastering Morrowind and Oblivion which are better and more interesting rpgs is just too hard for us, now. Making more casual shit that brings us more money with less effort is what inspires us to make games today. Fuck the fans of good rpgs.”
https://56.media.tumblr.com/3a84381c781a110a3eb8a283d839c00e/tumblr_o3f6cm2ETo1s6zdklo1_500.png
BlueLight
January 12, 2017 at 12:42 pmyes
TheOnceAndFutureKing
January 12, 2017 at 2:13 pmFF7 remake in a nutshell
DrearierSpider
January 12, 2017 at 4:06 pmThe only remaster I want from them is Fallout: New Vegas. It’d be great to see how modders could overhaul The Strip without that 4GB limitation of its current 32 bit engine.
Donwel
January 12, 2017 at 5:03 pmThe fan made mods for Skyrim outpace anything Bethesda HAVE done.
Fenrir007
January 12, 2017 at 5:45 pmWhy remake Morrowind and Oblivion when fans are doing it for free, and will likely continue working on improving those 2 games for decades? They know this.
Zanard Bell
January 12, 2017 at 5:50 pmI’d rather they just focus on making a proper RPG, but I’m pretty sure even that is going to be a tall order for them.
Leandro Teixeira
January 12, 2017 at 5:50 pmThe only good thing about a remastered Oblivion would be if they did it for consoles and it included all the PC exclusive DLC for all releases. KInd of BS the 5th Anniversary edition only had 2 DLCs while the PC has a dozen.
Psichaos
January 12, 2017 at 6:37 pmBethesda is the champion of releasing a game held together with duct tape and having modders work out the kinks. Of course they don’t want to put in extra effort. Its why Bethesda was the biggest pushers for charging money for mods and getting a piece of the pie off the backs of their biggest fans who go through the effort to fix their shit for them.
Seveok112
January 12, 2017 at 6:51 pmI like playing skyrim
Random Dude
January 12, 2017 at 9:44 pmThat’s technically not bethesda’s work so I doubt they’ll do that.
Phasmatis75
January 13, 2017 at 12:58 amCan’t wait for that to fail and everyone that supported it to get livid when parts 2 through whatever don’t come out.
Phasmatis75
January 13, 2017 at 12:59 amFan made projects for New Vegas and 4 are better than they have done as well. Sad when modders are better at the lore of the universe than the actual developers.
TheOnceAndFutureKing
January 13, 2017 at 1:11 amJudging by people’s reaction to 15’s narrative and story structure, I can see 7’s being butchered
I guess Ill just stick to my original 1997 copy