To celebrate Oblivion Remastered, Bethesda has gathered some of its long-time staff to sit them down and watch a documentary about the making of the original 19-year-old RPG.
In one room, a few dozen Bethesda developers watch their younger selves work on what would become one of the best-selling RPGs of all time. Todd Howard, who served as executive producer on the game, warns the team, "this is gonna be really f**king awkward watching this."
"I'm wearing the same necklace right now," the 42nd person hired by the company shouts as they see their younger self describing how to add trees and streets to the cityscapes of Cyrodiil.
One developer says: "It felt like a really small, tight team. I mean it wasn't a whole lot more than the number of folks sitting in here now, that was the whole company." It's wild to think about how small video game companies used to be.
Looking back at their younger selves and how they used to work, one dev says: "Watching [the documentary] feels like we were away at summer camp. A really cool, stressful, summer camp. We didn't know we were about to ship Fallout 3, and Skyrim, and Fallout 4."
"I remember all the struggles we went through making it," says another. One dev thinks "we hit a core truth: people want to explore." Simply wandering around the worlds of Skyrim and Fallout 3 are some of my favorite things to do in those games.
After the documentary ends, Howard addresses us and his team. "It was as awkward as I thought. In so many ways, when I see it and look in the room, it feels the same."
He also says: "It was impossibly hard to do what we wanted to do. The reward you feel emotionally when you do something really, really hard with a group of people, you hold onto it 20 years later and we'll be holding onto it for 20 more."
With so much news of layoffs, it's nice to see so many of the same developers at the company almost 20 years later. Here's hoping they can all make games together for another 20 more.
In the meantime, check out some of the best RPGs you can play right now.
