Bethesda finally revealed and launched The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, one of the games industry’s worst-kept secrets for months, and caused a few ripples in the mod community by publishing a post that said Oblivion Remastered mods aren’t supported. That’s a slightly vague statement, as it only means that Bethesda has no plans to develop and support an official Oblivion Remastered creation kit like the studio did for Skyrim or some of its other games.
However, Oblivion Remastered still allows for mods, even without a creation kit. You can download and run Oblivion mods or try to make your own without any kind of penalty or fear of a ban. The game just might not run properly, hence Bethesda recommending players disable mods if their game crashes for no other discernible reason.
Whatever issues may or may not be present with early mods, the Oblivion Remastered mod scene is already lighting up. NexusMods has a handful of creations, including one that restores the color shading from Oblivion’s original release, one to turn the desktop icon into the Adoring Fan, and one that makes a longsword deal 10,000 damage, because why not. Early downloaders have also reported no issues getting these mods to work, and that may be due to how Bethesda and Virtuous made Oblivion Remastered. It’s a hybrid of sorts, one that’s built in Unreal Engine 5, but that still runs on the original Oblivion engine.
As of the time of publication, modders are uncertain about the ease of porting old Oblivion mods to the remaster, and whether it’s even possible, as questions persist regarding how these changes might interact with Unreal Engine 5. However, they have discovered that it’s possible to open Oblivion Remastered’s files in the Oblivion Construction Set, a mod creation and management tool that lets creators modify the original game’s files. Some modders said that, even while they wait to figure out how to create new assets and enable mods, they should still be able to work with existing assets–for example, tweaking existing Oblivion classes instead of making brand-new ones.
Once there’s a greater consensus about how Oblivion Remastered mods work, we’ll update with detailed steps for how to install them and a roundup of the best ones worth downloading.
Meanwhile, if you’re just getting started in Oblivion for the first time or need a refresh, check out our Oblivion Remastered walkthrough for everything from tips on combat skills to how to navigate factions.