The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

1001 Video Games

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cancelled PSP version

A PSP version was in development and planned for release in the Spring of 2007, but it was eventually cancelled with no official word.

Development

The game has been in development since mid 2002. The long period of development was necessary due to the implementation of a new Radiant AI system and the graphics. A player may encounter while travelling the world of Tamriel: 35.544 shrubs and bushes, 67.730 plants and mushrooms, 94.013 trees and fallen logs, 395,696 rocks and about 1500 NPCs.

DLC

As a part of Xbox Live's Deal of The Week, Bethesda Softworks released all Oblivion downloadable content for half the price in April 2009. For Horse Armor however, the price was doubled, proving that Bethesda didn't take the criticism against their first DLC pricing too seriously.

ESRB

On 05/03/2006, the ESRB re-rated this game from T (Teen) to M (Mature) and added a "Nudity" attribute because of a secret topless skin that is present on the game media and because there is allegedly more blood and gore in the actual game than shown in the video footage that was originally presented to the ESRB for rating.

This is the second Take-Two game that has undergone an ESRB re-rating, the first one being the notorious Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

German version

One book found in the property of a killed necromancer, called "Wälzer des Unlebens" in the German version, contains just bloody drawings of symbols. In the German version, they were replaced a sentence describing the symbols.

References

The 'Shadow over Hackdirt' quest makes several references to one of the most famous novel by HP Lovecraft: The Shadow over Innsmouth. There are references to the 'Deep Ones', the Brethren, a whole town of suspicious people, caverns underneath the earth and so on.

References to the game

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was parodied in an episode of "Die Redaktion" (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. It was published on the DVD of issue 08/2006.

Title

By highlighting certain letters, it is made clear in the menu menu that it is no coincidence Bethesda chose the title "OblIVion" for the fourth main game in the Elder Scrolls series.

Awards

• Computer Games Magazine
  • March 2007 - #2 Game of the Year 2006
• GamePro (Germany)
  • February 01, 2007 - Best Console RPG in 2006 (Readers' Vote)
• Games for Windows Magazine
  • March 2007 - Game of the Year 2006
• GameSpy
  • 2006 – #8 Game of the Year
  • 2006 – PC Game of the Year (Gamers' Vote)
  • 2006 – #2 PC Game of the Year
  • 2006 – #10 Xbox 360 Game of the Year
  • 2006 – PC RPG of the Year
  • 2006 – PC RPG of the Year (Gamers' Vote)
  • 2006 – Xbox 360 RPG of the Year
  • 2006 – PC Mod of the Year (for Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul)
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/2008 - One of the "10 Coolest Levels" (for "A Brush with Death" because it connects simple technical variations with a big passion for stories. )
• Golden Joystick Awards
  • 2006 - Ultimate Game of the Year
  • 2006 - PC Game of the Year
  • 2006 - Console Game of the Year
• PC Powerplay (Germany)
  • Issue 02/2007 – Best RPG/Adventure in 2006
  • Issue 03/2007 – Best RPG/Adventure in 2006 (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by EboMike, karttu, Mad Griffith, MDMaster, PCGamer77, piltdown_man and tata_lu_stefan_cel_mare