The Elder Scrolls IV Nostalgia

“Oblivion is a game that we love, but why?”

Those of us in the gaming scene in 2006 probably remember when Oblivion first came out. It was stunning. We can all remember getting out of the sewers and looking out to an expansive world. However, that wasn’t the only thing that was amazing.

The Characters

The characters in The Elder Scrolls IV were pretty cool. They weren't just computers that were part of a game, they seemed to have lives of their own. You could follow one around and see that he or she made choices. Maybe they went to the pub every night, or maybe they hung out in the more natural parts of town. Either way, the NPCs were still more than NPCs.

What about your character? The character you made was a lot more personal than other mainstream games at the time could portrait. You could do big things like change race and adjust eye colors, and also do little things like adjust noes depth and the angle of the eye brows. Beyond this, your character was specialized in it’s gameplay. If you made a character that mainly used a bow, it would be very hard to change to a sword. This is just like how someone who is good at building computers can’t suddenly build cars.

The World

The world of Oblivion was full of depth. There were very few places you could be in in the world and not be next to something to do, not to mention the game was huge. There were many caves, alyeid ruins, forts, towns, and quests to do things with. You could walk into town and ask about rumors, which would most likely get a quest, or you could run into the wilderness and find a cave. It was also a gamble doing things, because you didn’t know if you would face some easy bandits, or tough vampires.

The main quest and the guild quests got very deep too. For example, the Dark Brotherhood and it’s bonus system. If you took a contract from the Dark Brotherhood, you could do it a specific way and you’d get a bonus. These specific tasks followed a strict pattern: make sure that the Dark Brotherhood is not suspected of murdering this person. If you read murder mysteries, you would’ve noticed this as soon as the contractor told you how to get the bonus.

Little details like these built up, and created a world where everything was worth exploring.

The Story (Spoilers)

The story of Oblivion was very well told. You basically had to hurry up and find the replacement for the emperor, or the world would be turned into a literal hell. The things you do to stop the world from being destroyed made sense, like finding out where the Cult was and making the portal to Mankar Camaron’s Paradise. All these leading up to the world being saved as the most important person, Martin, is about to be killed. However, you got all the items and stopped all the other threats, so that Martin saves the world.

This story was very compelling, and after we explored the world and realized just how many life-like people we saved, the story was that much more important.

These were the main points of why Oblivion stood out among the games of mid-2000, and why we might feel Nostalgic about it. There were a ton of other, minor details that also built up the game’s wow-factor, like fast travel and quest creativity. These are all very important, so let’s discuss them in the comments! What was your favorite little detail?