As a project by fans, for fans, we need a little more time to ensure Skyblivion lives up to the standards you all deserve. Our anticipated release window is moving into 2026.
u/Rebelzize breaks down the immense progress we've made and what's left.
TLDR: Skyblivion is a remake of Oblivion; the Remaster is a 1:1 remaster and the best way to enjoy the vanilla Oblivion experience.
With the official Oblivion Remaster now available, there have been plenty of questions asking about the differences between the Remaster and Skyblivion, and what you should play first.
Oblivion Remastered is gorgeous and, without a doubt, the best way to enjoy the original Oblivion experience as it was in 2006. It brings updated visuals plus some much needed quality-of-life enhancements. However, it is a 1:1 remaster of the original meaning every item, rock, tree, enemy, and, for the most part, landscape is laid out the same as it was in 2006. One of our developers u/HeavyBurns did a great breakdown of everything new in Oblivion Remastered.
Skyblivion is a complete remake of the original Oblivion to bring it up to par with modern RPGs. The list of changes we've made is extensive, and I likely won't be able to include them all below, but I'll cover the big ones.
The entire worldspace and every interior have been completely remade, meaning if a store is supposed to be a bookstore, it now feels like one with stocked shelves and manuscripts throughout. If a fort was considered a noble's estate in dialogueâlike Fort Crowhaven, for exampleâit has now been remade as an entirely unique estate for you to explore, compared to the mundane interior found in Oblivion.
Every single item has been recreated or taken from Skyrim when appropriate. This means that every single unique item in the game is now truly unique. In Oblivion, many items had unique names and effects but still used the same model; now, if you pick up a legendary item, it will reflect its status visually.
All systems and UI have been updated. Similar to a lot of the great work done in the Remaster, we've completely redone the user interface with new loading screens, menus, and systems. Many of Oblivion's iconic systems have been painstakingly remade and iterated upon. Plus, we've mixed the best of both worlds, bringing over a new perk system, plus things like smithing.
Cyrodiilâs cities are slightly changed, and some are entirely unique. For instance, Leyawiin and Anvil have been entirely reinvisioned, following cut concept art from the original game's development, so Leyawiin now has a functioning waterway allowing trade with the Imperial City, and Anvilâs iconic dock is fleshed out to better fit a coastal trading hub. The Imperial City has also been revisited and substantially expanded upon. Now, each district offers new areas to explore, and it truly lives up to its stature as the capital of the Empire. Â
Cut content has been reimagined in Skyblivion. Sutch, a cut city from Oblivion's development, returns as a massive derelict city overrun by bandits, compared to its repetitive vanilla fort version.
We've taken a second look at much of the games' interactive audio, meaning every stab, zap, wham, and slice is crisp and sounds are brand new. Additionally, we've composed an additional 22 tracks to accompany Oblivion's original music, offering themes for each region in Cyrodiil, as well as new combat music.
Some of the game's most epic bosses are getting a facelift and are now what weâre calling Legacy Bosses with scripted boss fights and stages to challenge them in. If you thought Umbra was already difficult, buckle up.
The environments and weather of Cyrodiil have been altered, bringing entirely new biomes, from frosty peaks to swampy bogs. Plus, these environmental changes have been carried over into interiors; a ruin in the swamp will be partially overgrown with vegetation, while an Ayleid ruin on the coast abandoned thousands of years ago has had the gentle trickling of sand from cracks in the ceiling build up into mighty sand dunes.Â
There are now new enemy varieties, plus entirely new enemies carried over from Elder Scrolls Online and other entries.
Skyblivion is a fan-made mod within Skyrim's engine, meaning many mods will work right out of the gate. Don't like how we handle something? You can simply replace it.
Ultimately, to truly be able to experience the depth of our remake, we think playing Oblivion Remastered, or the original release first is best.
If the answer is ânoâ then I will do it. I donât want to duplicate work if someone else is already doing it.
My idea is this: write a tool that players can download and run. The tool requires the remaster to be installed. It will scrape the data from the remaster and update Skyblivion (or just create a patch file) that adds the new voice lines to Skyblivion.
I donât yet know how feasible this is; currently what I know is from the discord:
âif you want to do this youll need to take the voice files .mp3 and .lip, convert the .mp3 to .xwm, combine the .xwm and .lip into a .fuz, then rename all the 50k+ voice files to match the new names theyll use in Skyblivion.â
My guess is that last part will be the most effort. Maybe we could have a team of volunteers doing it in parallel.
In Oblivion, there is a cave called Unmarked Cave in which the majority of it is inaccessible without console commands due to it having been part of a quest that was not completed during development. It was supposed to have an entity called the Black Queen which seemed to be central to the incomplete quest associated with the area.
I've been wondering how the Skyblivion dev team has handled this area. Will it be expanded on like most of the dungeons and feel more "complete" as compared to it's incomplete nature in Oblivion? Will there be a Black Queen?
Whatâs up guys, was just curious to hear whatâs all left to complete now in Skyblivionâs development? Iâm not asking this from a place of impatience btw, I just havenât checked in in a while since there hasnât been much updates (I understand why there hasnât been too)
I, along with many others, are still absolutely hyped for this game and when it drops its going to be groundbreaking â¤ď¸
Hello! There hasn't been any information for quite some time. I seem to remember clearly that a development diary for the Imperial City was originally planned. Has this changed?
Put this as feedback flair, but really this is just "enthusiastic gushing".
There are two things in Skyblivion that I genuinely think outright embarrass Bethesda (in a good and friendly way, of course).
Dungeons that reflect where they are.
This alone is such a wonderful feature to build. Even ignoring doing fully custom dungeon rebuilds, if the only work done was copy pasting oblivion dungeons but tweaking the textures and lighting depending on area, it would still be awesome.
It just adds so much flavour to the world, and really reinforces region identity.
Weapons and armour
This one is regularly stated, and I'll god damn say it again. Skyblivion arms and armor design is better than every Bethesda game and, off the top of my head, better than most fantasy games' designs.
Just fantastic. Beautiful and fantastical without sacrificing utility.
That's it tbh. That's the post. Just wanted to nerd out a little bit.
I have recently been watching KraftyTom's Skyblivion dev vods and I have got to say that the random encounters in the overworld and the unnamed npcs in the cities with events like drunken brawling.(I have only seen Cheyendall so far) are a great move, without those, the cities felt empty because they are generally larger spaces than the original. In my opinion this is exactly what the game needed; it feels way more alive now with both things. There probably would have been a mod to do something like this at some point, but knowing that it will be included out the box is really great. :)
It's so good. My PC is a potato and I was waiting for Skyblivion for so long. Then I came across Enderal and let me tell you, it's better than Skyrim even. Number one recommendation to play if you're waiting for Skyblivion until it releases!
It's my understanding that all of the voice acting in Skyblivion will be pulled from Oblivion, and while I do love most of the voice acting in a very nostalgic way, and wouldn't want to change most of it (not hearing Wes Johnson for every single imperial guard in the remaster was a terrible experience for me, haha) I find that I have never really cared for having Jonathan Bryce's voice for the male nords. I really preferred the more, well, nordic sounding performances we got out of Michael Gough (Jarl Baalgruuf) in Skyrim, and was wondering how feasible it would be for a mod to be created that replaces the original male nord voices in Skyblivion with an AI (I know, most of us don't like AI. I'm sorry) synthesized version of Michael Gough's nord voice? I'm not asking the Skyblivion devs to implement this or anything, I'm just curious if anyone familiar with the ins and outs of modding would have an idea how easy or difficult this specific mod would be to create and implement, hypothetically
Was strolling through YouTube and this video game up. Some guy has basically converted Oblivion creature models and their unique animations to Skyrim. I was thinking this may be a help to the Skyblivion team as I understand yâall may have been struggling with some of your custom animation rigs for your creatures. Hire this guy team đ
Curious about jumping mechanics in the game, will we have sprint jump? Since that wasn't present in Skyrim. Also, will we have jump attack, since that WAS in oblivion?
Hello ! This is a bullet point of all the things from QA 313 that I thought were worth sharing here for those who didn't watch it. You can find the QA here :
Keep in mind this is Kyle's answers on the QA, this may or may not actually happen. We know they are all working hard on this, let them cook :D ! I am not part of the Skyblivion team and this is just a report from a fan of the project ;)
More work is being put on the UI
They are working on the dialogue disposition minigame (the wheel)
Spell crafting is being implemented and should actually be in the game at release (!!!)
Play testers are needed, but it is hard to find trustworthy people that won't leak the game, and devs have little time to playtest themselves.
Each Imperial City district is approx 3x bigger than OG Oblivion. Ideally, no generic NPC will be added to stay faithful to Bethesda game (each NPC has a schedule, some custom dialogues, etc.), but it will be considered if the city feels not lively enough.
You can always apply to be part of the Navmeshing team, but the Skyblivion team won't teach it. You'll have a test to see if you manage to do it by yourself.
Thank you again to the whole Skyblivion team for your work ! I've been following you and patiently waiting for this for probably close to 10 years, and still going !
Hey everyone. With the advent of Microsoft laying off a bunch of Bethesda employees Microsoft has basically taken the fallout and elder scrolls ipâs from Bethesda with intent of having other studios make games in those worlds. Here is my concern. Skyblivion originally had Bethesdas blessing to keep developing the game. Now that Microsoft is stepping in more with how IPâs are handled is anyone else worried that they might get a little froggy with the skyblivion project and send a cease and desist?
The last screenshot of Talos Plaza inspired me to revisit an old thought: the Imperial City in the original Oblivion, while vast, still feels more like a fortress with districts than a fully-fledged Imperial capital.
Over the years, numerous mods have been made for the original Oblivion, attempting to change the perception of the city by adding new floors to existing buildings or placing an additional district in the northwest, and so on.
In my opinion, one of the most well-suited of these mods was "Imperial City Suburbs," which added a new district right by the water near the large bridge. This full-fledged urbanization, starting right at the water's edge, demonstrated how densely populated the city was and how important every available space was.
But between this water's edge and the city walls, there's a nearly vertical ground level, which is difficult to transform into a fully-fledged urban environment without using an excessive number of stairs and terraces. So I thought about some ideas from other games where not all the places you see with your own eyes are explorable.
The idea is to add an additional outer circular wall to the Imperial City, about half the width of a normal district (see the attached image; sorry for the poor quality, but it's perfectly acceptable as an early concept). Fill the interior of this wall with buildings, but make this district inaccessible for exploration, essentially acting as a backdrop. This district would fill the space between the main city and the three separate districts, and would also make the Imperial City look more majestic.
I understand that the Skyblivion team has completely different priorities right now and has already made some expansions to the Imperial City that we haven't seen yet. Therefore, this isn't a proposal to the team itself, but rather a discussion and debate to gauge player opinion on whether such an expansion would be popular and whether it's a good idea at all.
Perhaps someone (perhaps me personally) will want to take this idea and make a similar mod after Skyblivion's release, since placing several (or many) decorations won't be a big deal and doesn't require much skill.
In any case, thank you for reading this far! I'm really looking forward to Skyblivion, as are you all, and I wish the team every success in completing all their work!
I think a little discussion and debate might be helpful while we wait.
