Fan remake of Oblivion in Skyrim has a new video, looks amazing, is set for release ‘this year,’ and I struggle to imagine the rumoured official Oblivion remake doing much better

Remaking an old game in a new engine is a venerable and usually doomed mainstay of the modding scene. Always has been, always will be. They either stay ‘in development’ forever, get cease-and-desisted, or shrivel up in their incubators. It’s the natural order of things.

Unless, apparently, they’re Skyblivion, the remake of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion in the Skyrim: Special Edition engine. In the making since 2012, Skyblivion just put out a live demo and Q&A video showing off some of the work the devs have been up to, and clarifying that, yup, it’s still on track for a release this year.

“Every second message in chat is: ‘When is release?'” said Skyblivion mechanics lead Scott Whiting. “We’ll tell you as soon as we know. It’s a volunteer project; it’s hard to pin down an exact release date, but we are confident we can get it out this year. It’s coming along so incredibly.”

He’s not wrong. In the parts of Skyblivion that Whiting and Rebelzize—the mod’s project lead—showed off in the video, it really does look stunning. Things kick off in Cheydinhal, home of Oblivion’s Dark Brotherhood sanctuary, before taking us through a dungeon and A Brush with Death: that quest where you dive into a painting to rescue a wayward artist. It all looks spectacular. If you told me it was footage from that rumoured official Oblivion remake/remaster Bethesda, I wouldn’t bat an eye.

It raises a question, to be honest. If that official remake is A) real and B) due out this year, that puts it head-to-head with Skyblivion and the 13 years of development behind it. I’ll be honest, as much as I’d love to get my hands on an official re-do, I struggle to imagine it being markedly better than this fan attempt.

But whether or not it overshadows an official re-release, Skyblivion is fantastic stuff, and I’m eager to see what the full thing holds when it finally hits release. In particular, I’m curious how the Skyblivion’s additions—like unique dungeon appearances for each region of Cyrodiil—go down with fans. I have to imagine they’ll go over well, unless there’s some kind of disaster. Oblivion’s homogenous Ayleid dungeons got old after a while. And by ‘a while’ I mean the third one or so.

We’ll know when the mod releases, barring catastrophe, later this year. I can’t wait. I also can’t wait for Skywind, the mod doing the same thing as Skyblivion but for Morrowind, or Tamriel Rebuilt, the mod building out the rest of Morrowind (the province) in Morrowind (the game). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: god bless modders.