The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Retrospective

A lot of PC gamers consider The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to be the black sheep, or rather the black armored horse, of The Elder Scrolls franchise. Console gamers, on the other hand, view it as the template that changed everything and redefined what a western RPG should look like. And considering the current state of the video game market, no matter how painful, it’s hard to disagree with them.

As such, in order to celebrate the 17th anniversary since the game’s release, VG247 has put together this retrospective that tries to zero in on what made Oblivion special and how its legacy still reverberates to this day.

Here’s a quick excerpt to get you started:

It was, arguably, the first properly good reason to own an Xbox 360. One that couldn’t be experienced perfectly adequately on the PS2. One that set a high standard for western RPGs for years to come, paving the way for its stablemates which made the relatively obscure Fallout series into a juggernaut, and its sequel Skyrim which is, unless you count Pokemon, the most successful RPG of all time. The template Oblivion set, inherited in a ramshackle form from Morrowind, will be followed once again this year by Starfield, which will probably be the biggest game of this year. But aside from its direct descendents, Oblivion’s influence on the genre as a whole, and the very market which it serves, can scarcely be overstated.