It's been 18 years, but Oblivion can still find as many ways to surprise me as Skyrim – even if it means making an orc-vampire monstrosity

If there was money on the line, I could run through The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion's tutorial blindfolded. Looking at the latest character I've made – an impossibly narrow-headed orc, so pale he's almost glowing – I almost wish I was playing in complete darkness. But I've played so much of this gem that it's taking more and more eccentric playthroughs to keep Tamriel feeling fresh. No more stealth archer wood elf, I'm afraid. Dark elf spellcaster, begone. This orc, dubbed Chill David by friends watching me play over Discord, is all about two-handed hammers, giant axes, and claymores long enough to skewer a mudcrab. OK, and a little bit of magic, because his name is Chill David and it's funny to freeze things as his signature killing stroke.

But largely, this playthrough is all about being a big raging barbarian – the only build I'm yet to complete Oblivion with – and giving me another excuse to play through Bethesda's greatest RPG to date.

Criminal scum

Like our own Heather Wald's return to Skyrim, I returned to Oblivion off the back of Starfield: Shattered Space. Though I was initially hot on the DLC, it ultimately didn't manage to sink its hooks into me. But it did leave me pining for more Bethesda – and where better to get my fix than Oblivion? It's my all-time favorite game from the studio, warts and all. While it lacks Skyrim's polish and hand-crafted dungeons, its armor and magic systems – which let you create your own wildly unbalanced spells – remain far more in-depth. I love how unique each city feels, and its quests remain some of Bethesda's best. Most important though, I adore the way that time has caught Oblivion in amber. Its small handful of voice actors, almost-watercolor forests, and odd-looking characters have become strangely comforting as nearly two decades of technological advancements have marched games toward realism, leaving Oblivion with arguably more character than it had in its heyday.

This is why it's so important for me to keep finding new ways into Oblivion – hence, Chill David. But old habits die hard, and although I fled the Imperial Sewers like some sort of freshly-unearthed cryptid, I fell into the same routine I always do. First, a trip to Imperial City's Arena, to make a name for Chill David (and make some much-needed gold). Combat in Oblivion has all the texture of beating a gammon joint with a hammer, but working through the ranks to become Grand Champion is sweetly nostalgic.

This time around, though, I'm shocked by how similarly the Grey Prince, Cyrodiil's reigning Champion, looks to my own character. A half-orc who's just as pale as myself, I strike up a conversation and offer to help uncover his supposedly-noble lineage, which involves taking a detour to investigate a crumbling fortress along Cyrodiil's coast. When I get there, the only thing inside is his dad – a feral, half-starved vampire who the Grey Prince's mother locked away before running away with their newborn. He's resistant to frost damage and I've got no stake on-hand, so I resort to pummeling him with a hammer before bringing his son the bad news. He is, to say the least, bummed. When I see him again, after working my way through the Arena's combatants to challenge him for the title of Grand Champion, the Grey Prince is so dejected that he lets me kill him without fighting back in our match.

Alas, poor Grey Prince! Becoming Grand Champion has never felt so hollow. Just as Chill David found an Orc as strange-looking as himself, he was torn away (see: bludgeoned to death). But if anything, it revealed the path ahead: if the Grey Prince was so pale due to vampirism, it made sense to seek out a way for Chill David to become the creature of the night he was always destined to become. Luckily, that proved fairly straight-forward. If you complete the Grey Prince's quest and kill him in the arena, Oblivion considers it murder, which conveniently is all you need to be headhunted (not like that) for the Dark Brotherhood. When the Brotherhood's creepy leader Lucian Lachance later appears at my bedside, I leap at his offer: partly because Chill David's time in the Arena has unleashed his natural born killer, but mainly because the Dark Brotherhood's quest line provides a surefire way to becoming a vampire.

On a more meta level, Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood questline is – in my humble opinion – leagues ahead of its Skyrim counterpart. One contract, which tasks you with mingling in a locked mansion with treasure hunters before picking them off one by one, remains one of Bethesda's best quests to date. In another, you've got to kill a retired Imperial Legion commander while he bathes, then leave his severed finger in his successor's office. I prefer Oblivion's killers because more of their quests feel memorable, thanks to their oddly specific setups (like dropping a comically large moose head on someone while they read) and a greater emphasis on being sneaky.

Chill David rises through the ranks, and eventually vampire-assassin Vicente Valtieri offers to share his bloodsucking ways with him. Finally. I settle down on Valtieri's stone slab to let him do his thing, already thinking about what we'll do with our new powers. I bloody love vampirism in Oblivion, which requires you stay on top of feeding – unless you want the sun to near-instantly kill you, or townspeople to hate you. It takes three days for Porphyric Hemophilia to kick in. I pass the time wandering Cyrodil by day, doing odd bits of do-goodery between steadier work with the Fighter's Guild. I save a man who was trapped in a painting, break up a ring of rich people who hunt humans for sport, and solve a case involving mountain lions and murdered pet rats.

When those three days end, tragedy strikes. Upon waking up as a vampire, elation turns to dismay as I discover that Valtieri's "dark gift" – through reasons known only to Oblivion's wild Creation Engine – has transformed Chill David's luminous skin tone to a regular, orc-y green. The whole reason I wanted to become undead, to find companionship in the Grey Prince's own corpse-pale pallor, is gone. Things go downhill. I start snacking on refugees from Kvatch to keep up appearances, and for the first time, play most of Oblivion's main quest at night to avoid the sun's glare. Is this really what Chill David pictured his life becoming?

But secretly, I'm delighted. I specifically returned to Oblivion and made an orc in the hopes that I'd see the game from a new light, and I did. I had no idea, for example, how many orcs have unique dialogue if you're playing as their kin. I can honestly say that playing a heavy-footed, warhammer-swinging vampire is something I've never done before, while working around characters' nightly schedules (and yes, finding time to suck their blood) is a massive shake-up to the sunlit routines I'm used to.

I don't know what the future holds for Chill David, but I'm thrilled that Oblivion can still find new ways to surprise me after playing for hundreds of hours. It's a deeply unpredictable gem that I wouldn't have Bethesda "polish" or remaster for any amount of money – and when I inevitably next return to Skyrim, you can bet I'll be making the strangest cretin imaginable in hopes of history repeating itself.

These games like Skyrim are all you'll need to pass the time until The Elder Scrolls 6