Screenshots of the heavily rumoured The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion remake have been accidentally published, amping up expectations the game could drop any day now.
Keen eyes over at Reddit noticed Virtuos, the developer of the remake, seemingly unwittingly posted the pics on its own website.
You know what? It sounds like it’s time to head back to Tamriel as this remake is looking pretty shiny so far.
The rumour mill suggests the game has the same core Oblivion bones under all the gloss, with some modern tweaks applied no doubt. But the graphics piled on top are rendered through Unreal Engine 5, the most popular game engine of the moment — used for everything from Fortnite to Avowed to Marvel Rivals.
This isn’t one of those remasters where the resolution has been bumped and the textures upscaled with AI (although, who knows, maybe some were) as there are clearly changes to the objects in the world too.
What’s not yet clear is whether Virtuos has fully revamped the game’s iconic potato-faced NPCs, and fixed how in the original it can seem about three voice actors are used for hundreds of people across Cyrodiil.
According to Jeff Grubb, this remake is coming some time next week, likely to land some time between April 21st and April 25th. And if you have Game Pass Ultimate, it’s expected to drop onto the service as the game is officially announced.
It may not be cheap for everyone else, though. One of the leaked screenshots shows the cover art for a Deluxe Edition of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, suggesting it’s a big enough release to warrant a higher-price version.
The existence of this Oblivion remake was first revealed in court documents released as part of Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, back in 2023. They suggested it was originally pencilled in for release by June 2022. And here we are almost three years later, without the game having been even confirmed.
The current supposition is Microsoft will “shadow drop” the game, meaning it will be revealed and released at the same moment. Microsoft famously did the same for Hi-Fi Rush back in 2023, although to Elder Scrolls fans this remake will feel like a bigger deal, by an order of magnitude.