Fans wondered if Oblivion would come back as a simple remaster or full remake after early rumors. Papers from the Microsoft-FTC court case first called it a remaster. Later we learned Bethesda hired Virtuos, the same team working on Metal Gear Solid Delta, to move the game to Unreal Engine 5 with many improvements.
The release surprised players with how much had changed. Bruce Nesmith, who designed the original Oblivion before leading Skyrim and working on Starfield until 2021, felt the same way. He told Videogamer he expected just updated textures but saw something much larger instead.
Nesmith called the project almost beyond remastering because they redid animations, changed the engine, fixed the leveling system, and updated the...