New rumors claim that an official remaster-turned-remake of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is in the works, some 11 years after fans began remaking the storied RPG on their own.
That's according to a now-deleted Reddit post first flagged by Xfire, in which a self-described ex-employee of remake specialist Virtuos Games alleges multiple unannounced games due in the next few years. The list includes an internal project purportedly codenamed Ominous and billed as a "narrative climbing game," as well as the now-official Metal Gear Solid 3 remake. There's also word of a "Monster Hunter x Shadow of the Colossus" action game, but the headliner is codenamed Altar, said to be "a remaster/remake of Oblivion."
The source, which has now deleted both this post and their account, claims that "the discussions for it being a full remake are still ongoing," which is among this rumor's most glaring red flags. This source claims the remake would be released in late 2024 or early 2025 depending on how big the project ultimately becomes, with the bulk of development handled by the Paris branch and Virtuos studio Blackshamrock supporting the art side. Development pipelines are famously temperamental, but if this thing was actually targeting a late 2024 release, I'd imagine the production team would've decided what it is by now.
- Modder leading 13-year effort to remake Oblivion in Skyrim isn't worried about an official remake: "The fact Skyblivion is nearly in a releasable state is a miracle"
- While Bethesda celebrates The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion's 19th birthday with a "Happy Anniversary" post, fans of the RPG had more in mind: "It would be perfect to... announce something"
On top of the scope of the changes apparently being undecided, this source claims the new Oblivion would be a two-engine project by way of a "pairing system," with the new graphics handled by Unreal Engine 5 but behavioral and baseline things like physics and gameplay "still done in Oblivion." The technical specifics here are a little fuzzy, but on paper this sounds similar to the setup used by the Halo Master Chief Collection, which preserves old-school gameplay despite updated visuals. That said, marrying the 17-year-old Oblivion engine with the brand-spankin'-new Unreal Engine 5 sounds like a much more complicated nightmare.
The kicker here is that this source was vetted by the moderators of the Gaming Leaks And Rumors subreddit. In a comment on a new post about a story about the deleted post – yes, we're that deep in the mines – one mod clarified that "their ID was verified before" the post was deleted. Does that make any of these alleged projects real? Of course not, but it did raise my eyebrow, and there is at least an ounce of plausibility to this.
First of all, The Elder Scrolls 6 isn't coming out for a million years, and I could honestly see Xbox and Bethesda shaking Oblivion down for a remake in the interim after finally running out of new ways to re-release Skyrim. Secondly, Virtuos is an enormous and famously leaky ship, and the equally high-profile Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake – oh sorry, that's Metal Gear Solid: Delta – ended up being real. There's a reasonable argument to be made that this actually supports the theory of this rumor being a hoax cobbled together from wild fantasies using established leaks like a Trojan Horse, but stupider leaks have ended up being true, so I'm not prepared to write it off immediately.
The true irony here is that an unofficial Oblivion remake is now nearing completion after more than a decade of fan efforts. Skyblivion, an Oblivion remake made in Skyrim's engine, announced a 2025 release window earlier this year, putting it roughly 50 years ahead of The Elder Scrolls 6. If this rumor does end up being real, we may be lucky enough to experience two Oblivion remakes in this lifetime.
For now, at least Oblivion's Adoring Fan lives on in Starfield.
