In case you were living under a rock yesterday, a bunch of screenshots and details about the long-rumoured Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster leaked via Virtuos Games’ website. Naturally, everyone was like ‘whoa, it is actually real’, including the team of modders who’ve been working on their own Oblivion remaster for about a decade – Skyblivion.
While the group behind the massive mod have faced plenty of questions about an official Oblivion remake and what it could mean for their project since the rumours began swirling, VG247 reached out to project lead Kyle ‘Rebelzize’ Rebel to get a sense of how the team’s feeling now that it looks pretty nailed on that we’ll be getting this official remaster soon.
Rebel told us that the team’s plan now that the official remaster has been pretty much confirmed to be real is simple: “focus on the release of our own version and stay positive”.
“Luckily this thing was all about passion from the start and it still is,” he said, “I’ve gotten more out of this than I ever imagined, friends, experience and it made me realize I wanted to work in the gaming industry which I ended up doing.
“At the end of the day it only exists because Bethesda allowed it, so I guess if the official remake is real it’s good that we were still allowed to exist at all.”
So, full steam ahead for Skyblivion’s currently planned 2025 release window, similarly to what Rebel told us when we spoke to him back in February, when the official remaster was still just a thing that might exist. “I think whether the rumours are true or not doesn’t affect us much,” the modder said in that interview, “If they are true I hope it will give people even more of a reason to try out our iteration of it. If it’s not true then this will be the best way to re-experience the game [with] a new coat of paint.
“At the end of the day, we are not trying to sell a game and make a profit. I dedicated 10+ years to bring this game to the fans and I feel this is a typical case of ‘ït’s about the journey, not the destination’. The fact Skyblivion is nearly in a releasable state is a miracle, as we all went into this blindly and in some cases failed our way to the finish line.”
I don’t know about you, but as a big Elder Scrolls nerd, I’m very much keen to see what both the official Oblivion remaster and Skyblivion have to offer. It should be pretty damn interesting to compare two different takes on revamping a game we all love. And if you don’t like either, the original will still be there, waiting to welcome you back with a chorus of ‘By Azura, by Azura, by Azuuuuuuuraaaaa!’