Oblivion Remastered player spends 55,000 years in jail after a 2-billion bounty crime spree, breaking the in-game calendar in the process

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I'm not sure Tamriel would even exist by that point

Oblivion Remastered screenshot of NPC preaching with eyes shut
(Image credit: Bethesda)

An Oblivion Remastered player who stole more than a million different items in a Cyrodiil-wide crime spree showed off exactly what happens when that life of crime caught up to them.

In a post on Reddit, Scribe_of_Satire said "to anyone wondering what'd happen if you went to jail with a bounty of over 2 billion, here ya go!" Indeed, their rap sheet featured a largest bounty of 2.105 billion gold, across more than one million items stolen.

To anyone wondering what'd happen if you went to jail with a bounty of over 2 billion, here ya go! from r/oblivion

Nevertheless, their apparent reign as God-King of every Thieves' Guild from Solitude to Black Marsh came to an end, with a total jail time of more than 20 million days. That's about 55,000 years, which to put in its real-world perspective would have seen Neanderthals still doing pretty well here on Earth.

That amount of time is one that Oblivion Remastered doesn't really seem equipped to handle. By the time Scribe of Satire emerged from their 50-millennia lockup, their game decided that it was the year -9,818 of Tamriel's third era, suggesting that at some point the in-game calendar simply looped back on itself. For clarity, the events of the game are supposed to take place in 3E 433, so the timeline is all kinds of messed up.

It's not an entirely unique way of experiencing the game, however. One Oblivion player, while admittedly a less prolific thief, spent 19 years in jail - the kind of time that really should have seen the Oblivion crisis resolve itself through natural means. Another player placed themselves in a prison of their own making, creating a paralysis spell so powerful that it trapped them for 66 years. For context, that's longer than Emperor Uriel Septim - whose reign ran for decades - ruled over the Empire. 55,000 years does beat both of those totals out, but I wonder if anyone else will be able to beat it.

19 years later, Oblivion Remastered has renewed my interest in walking into people’s houses uninvited.

Ali Jones
Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.

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