So Todd has gone and dropped
The Oblivion Remaster out of fucking NOWHERE, and I don't know how to feel. I've been cold on Bethesda since the highly disappointing launch of
Starfield, and my hype for
TES VI has dipped as a result—but this has caught everyone's attention because it’s seemingly come out of nowhere. There have been rumours over the past week or so, but considering this must have been in development for at least a couple of years, it's impressive something like this was kept under wraps in this day and age.
Here’s the other weird thing though. The longest-running and arguably most famous unfinished total conversion mod for
Skyrim—called
Skyblivion—has been in development for FIFTEEN YEARS, and they’re releasing the full game THIS YEAR. And yeah, it's the entirety of
Oblivion remastered within the
Skyrim Creation Engine, if the name didn’t tip you off.
Todd gave them all free copies of the game, at least.
I mean, it is a nice gesture—and a way of acknowledging (and approving of)
Skyblivion's existence, I guess.
The
Skyblivion team are being (of course) very polite and grateful about all this, but it’s got to sting a bit. Bethesda owns everything and can do what they want, and I don't think this remaster totally invalidates all the work the
Skyblivion team has done—and I’ll probably play both. BUT STILL.
All I'm saying is: when they finally release the game later this year, I don’t think any of the hundreds of people involved in making it will be signing on for another decade-plus dev cycle over someone else’s IP ever again.
EDIT:
Annnnnnd here we go...