As fans begin exploring The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered following Bethesda Game Studios' surprise release of the remade RPG, former developers like designer Bruce Nesmith are joining players in praising the new game.
Nesmith, who worked on projects like the original 2006 Oblivion and Skyrim, recalls seeing the remake a week before its public reveal in an interview with VideoGamer. "I spent a lot of years working on that game," he says. "A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into it, along with everybody else on the team. And I intimately knew every single scene that they were showing. And they looked amazing."
The former Bethesda dev had no idea the remake would be as impressive a feat as it turned out to be. "I was assuming this was going to be a texture update," he explains. "I didn't really think it was going to be the complete overhaul that they've announced it to be… I would not have batted an eye at that. But to completely redo the animations, the animation system, put in the Unreal Engine, change the leveling system, change the user interface."
As Nesmith puts it, that's "a staggering amount" of work. "I mean, that's, you're touching every part of the game. That's a staggering amount of remastering. It almost needs its own word, quite frankly. I'm not sure remaster actually does it justice." As for how the remake makes him feel, he admits he's proud. "Pride is the number one thing [I feel]," describes Nesmith, looking back at Oblivion's 19-year-long history.
"A game that I worked on has the longevity to still generate interest 20 years later and to be worth the effort – it sounds like considerable effort – and time that Bethesda put into remastering it. I mean, there's precious few people in our industry who can say that they've been part of something like that." If not quite a remaster or a remake, Nesmith wagers "the closest that could come [to categorizing it] is Oblivion 2.0."
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