Bethesda decides Oblivion Remastered players were right, adds a new difficulty mode to "act as a better bridge between 'Adept' and 'Expert' for players"

Faelian — (Image credit: Bethesda, Gamerant/Erik Petrovich)

If you were among the many Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered players overjoyed to relive the classic RPG but exhausted by its inordinately brutal Expert difficulty, then today is a good day. In the newly (beta) released update 1.2, Bethesda's added a new difficulty setting specifically taking aim at the gulf separating Expert from the rest.

Importantly, "While 1.2 won’t roll out to all other platforms just yet, you will be able to experience this update on our Steam Beta later today," Bethesda clarifies.

The broad verdict on challenge after Oblivion Remastered launched was that many Adept players would like some more and many Expert players would like some less, so here's hoping Journeyman provides a nice comfy middle ground – like Ultra Violence in the modern Doom games.

A few other lines of patch 1.2 stand out. "Fixed map markers disappearing" – that's a godsend. And this one ought to prevent some confusion: "Fixed stats not updating when equipping enchanted items." A boat-load of crashes have purportedly been addressed, including the nefarious "crashes that could occur during auto saves."

Fixed soft lock when a player with a high bounty goes to jail (I have to wonder, was this about the functionally infinite servitude?)
Fixed NPC beards not following facial animation
Fixed falling unconscious in water preventing player from getting up
Fixed the incorrect player stance in the inventory menu after fast travel
Fixed crashing when killing a paralyzed NPC with an arrow
Fixed underwater SFX persisting after leaving exiting water (typo preserved because that, too, is classical)

Oblivion Remastered proves I was wrong to give up on the original game 10 years ago, but I worry Bethesda has lost the magic that made Cyrodiil's open world RPG shine.