With the release of the classic and highly beloved Elder Scrolls games on Gamepass as part of the Bethesda acquisition, players are stepping foot back into the worlds of Cyrodiil, Skyrim, and Morrowind. Oblivion was an amazing entry point for many first-time Elder Scrolls players but the follow-up, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim took things to the next level.
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It's remained one of the most iconic games in the past decade and has seen multiple ports and has sprouted an entire modding community that is very active to this day. It's hard to find someone on this planet that hasn't heard of Skyrim in some sort of way. But ultimately, is Oblivion better than Skyrim? When choosing Oblivion or Skyrim, there's a lot to consider.
Updated August 17, 2021 by Erik Petrovich: Rumors of a remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are abound with the announcement that no work has been done on the sixth entry in the series. While the game still holds up perfectly fine today, there are certainly a few things that could use an update for 2021 – like the game's outdated graphics. There's a lot that Oblivion does better than Skyrim, though – its star-studded voice cast, for one. It's not a perfect game, but any fan of The Elder Scrolls series should give it a go. It's more user-friendly than Morrowind was, but it still offers more of a challenge than Skyrim ever could.
12 Better: The Voice Acting Cast
The voice acting in The Elder Scrolls Oblivion is both a boon and a drawback for the game, as it's phenomenally done but there's an overall lack of diversity. However, while a player will usually be easily able to tell which characters were voiced by the same person (usually Wes Johnson, who famously voiced all Imperial males, Sheogorath, and others) there are a few standouts.
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None other than Sir Patrick Stewart played the role of the Emperor for the introductory sequence, and Sean Bean played Martin Septim, the destined Emperor of Tamriel. The quality of their voice performances elevates the experience of the main quest of Oblivion. For as memed and repetitive as all other voices in the game are, one cannot deny how iconic "STOP! YOU VIOLATED THE LAW" has become in modern video gaming.
11 Not Better: Variety of Vistas
When it comes to Skyrim vs Oblivion, One thing that the former definitely has over the latter is the variety of locations, terrain, and everything else that makes a landscape interesting to look at. The Reach looks completely different to The Rift, the buildings of Solitude are different from those in Falkreath, and looking out over Skyrim from the top of the Throat of the World reveals completely different vistas in any direction.
Oblivion is different. There's no denying the classical beauty of the game's landscapes and rendering – vibrancy goes a long way in making things look nice – but everywhere is green, hilly, forested, and generally lacking any kind of diversity. The view is practically the same from outside the Imperial City as it is looking out over Cyrodil from above Anvil. There are lots of mods that make the game more interesting to look at, but without these players have to get used to saturated green as far as the eye can see.
10 Better: Higher Difficulty Level
Oblivion is much more similar to traditional Elder Scrolls games rather than the newer modern RPG style that Skyrim adopted. The combat is much more difficult and the quests don't hold the player's hand as much as Skyrim does. Some of the quests really require the player to engage in the lore of the game. This could be both a good and a bad thing depending on the player's style. It does definitely make the story and side quests a lot more engaging.
Skyrim can be fairly easy unless mods are added to make the difficulty levels more intense. This is obviously a bit harder to do on consoles as mods are quite limited. Even with its difficulty level, Oblivion is still very enjoyable but could be a turn-off from fans that started their adventures with Skyrim.
9 Not Better: Character Models
One of the major downsides about Oblivion is that the graphics really don't hold up after all these years, unlike Skyrim which still looks pretty decent. This isn't necessarily a major flaw but some players may find themselves not liking the graphics style. There is something really special about Oblivion's graphics. It could be nostalgia or just the fact that the world of Cyrodiil is extremely colorful and the character models sometimes look hilarious.
Overall it isn't a reason to not want to play the game but a lot of players may find themselves wanting to download mods to make the graphics a bit better. There are a ton available that enhance the game's look while keeping it close to the original game. When it comes down to Oblivion vs Skyrim, though, the more modern title easily takes it.
8 Better: Oblivion Gates
The Oblivion gates are one of the most interesting things to ever be introduced into an RPG game. They appear randomly and are quite terrifying at first. They act as bridges between the Mortal World and the Daederic World. The enemies within can be quite challenging to kill at first and it's very rewarding to close the first couple of Oblivion Gates that appear in the game.
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Skyrim didn't really have anything like this. There are a couple of references to the Oblivion gates found within books and text in the world but players never get to actually travel into one. It'd be very interesting if the next Elder Scrolls game implements Oblivion Gates in some sort of way but also improves on it.
7 Not Better: Late Game Oblivion Gates
Some players find Oblivion Gates to get extremely tedious towards the late game as a lot of them get really repetitive to complete and offer the same experience as the last. That being said, it could be a good thing that Skyrim did not bring them back in any sort of way.
A lot of the time the Oblivion Gates would offer a higher leveled character nothing to really reward them in the story besides pushing them closer to completion of the main story. Some of the creatures within the Oblivion Gates can be annoying to deal with even for higher leveled players with good defense and armor.
6 Better: Exploration and Questing
Exploration is something that both Oblivion and Skyrim are almost tied on. Oblivion does feel a bit more alive than Skyrim at times with random NPC's constantly coming up to the player and strange events happening almost all the time while traveling. There's danger in cities, quests around every corner, and one never truly knows what they're getting into.
Side quests are written far better than in Skyrim, too. For example, one quest sends the player inside of a painting to recover a lost artist, and another puts the player in the role of Detective in a murder mystery mansion. It forces the player to actually want to explore all around the world and find all the secrets deep within the world.
5 Not Better: Leveling System
The leveling system is one of the major flaws of the Oblivion game. It may have worked out in the past but definitely doesn't hold up compared to Skyrim. Oblivion requires players to increase any of their major skills by 10 before reaching the next level. Once that's done, the player will need to find a place to rest in order to fully gain the level.
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It's a system that just hasn't aged very well and could take the player out of the world by having to travel somewhere just to gain an extra level. The system in Skyrim is better and requires far less grinding. It feels more rewarding and progression has much more replayability.
4 Better: Class System
While Skyrim gives the player more freedom, Oblivion feels more like a classic RPG game. There's something special about really having to think out the playable character's background and picking out what they'll specialize in. It's a lot more lore-heavy than what's introduced in Skyrim but may only stick out to fans of the older games or other games in the genre.
It creates a sense of immersion that carries with the player throughout their journey. If the player wants to become a dagger-wielding thief, they can specialize in that early on. Being a mage in Oblivion feels far different than being one in Skyrim as the spells feel more rewarding to get.
3 Not Better: Modding Community
The modding community in Oblivion is not as good as Skyrim which has such a huge library of mods that are very accessible to players on both pc and console. Ever since the Skyrim: Special Edition release, console players have been able to get their hands on some of the mods that are available on PC.
While not all of them are available to console players, it still is an amazing feature that adds more replayability to the game. Oblivion could eventually get this if it is ever remastered. The mods available for Oblivion are great, typically total overhauls in nature, but they just are not on the level of Skyrim and probably never will be – what's better than Macho Man Randy Savage as Alduin, after all?
2 Better: The Imperial Arena
The Arena is one of the best questlines in Oblivion. It's challenging, engaging, and extremely rewarding. The Arena takes the player through a series of quests that have them battling against different opponents to progress through ranks to become the Grand Champion of the Arena. It's a feature that's sorely missing in Skyrim.
It's a pretty great way to get money and the dialogue for the storyline throughout the quests is written extremely well. Some of the opponents can prove to be very challenging. It's a pretty small part of the game that makes the Imperial City feel so much bigger and alive. Players can also bet on arena matches to try to get some gold.
1 Not Better: Combat, Except For Magic
First-time players will notice very quickly that the combat in Oblivion pales in comparison to Skyrim. It feels clunky, dated, and some enemies just take way too long to kill unless the player grinds to upgrade their skills. The combat in Skyrim is much more polished and feels a lot easier. It'd be great to have an Oblivion Remaster that polishes the combat to be slightly better.
Some builds in the game feel pretty weak, such as early game bows, and some weapons. The best thing to do early on is get acquainted with magic as it's one of the best parts of Oblivion. However, Skyrim definitely takes the crown for having the best combat in an Elder Scrolls game at the moment.
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