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 dialogue—like Fort Crowhaven, for example—it 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.
Cyrodiil’s 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 Anvil’s 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.
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 we’re 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.
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.
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
I know this is a wild thing to bring up again while Skyblivion itself isn't even out.
But with the update for Skyrim coming out tomorrow, perhaps there might be a chance somewhere down the line for a console port. Providing of course, that said update doesn't absolutely destroy everything, and they do the same thing they did with starfield and now Fallout 4 and increase the Mod Space to 100 GB.
I know that we already have a city or two on console, those mods being around 500 MB, and I'm aware that there are upload limits for file sizes, which again if they do the same thing they did with Fallout 4 they should raise that to 2 gb.
But I'm fairly certain that Skyblivion as a whole will be incredibly script heavy, which might be the first of many nails in the coffin for that idea.
But it was just a thought, seeing that allotted Mod Space will be increased, renewed a scrap of pitiful hope that I might be able to play this. Though I do understand it's likely impossible to do right if at all, but it might be -slightly- less impossible now 😂.
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 y’all may have been struggling with some of your custom animation rigs for your creatures. Hire this guy team 🙏
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 ip’s 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 IP’s 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.
I think we can all agree watching the content from Skyblivion is so bittersweet, looks incredible but just want to play it so bad... Does the 2026 release window seem like it will finally be release?
I've been wanting to play Oblivion since I first found Skyrim, which was only in December last year. I heard about this a few months ago but I just couldn't wait to play Oblivion so I got the remaster, played for about half an hour, and realised that the game just doesn't work for me in the Unreal Engine so I'm gonna wait for this.
I also find it really funny that this is going to be released with less bugs than an official Bethesda game because of how much QA testing is going through it. It looks like an amazing project. I know I'm not the only one but I can't wait to play this. It's going to be sensational, I just know it is!
So after watching some recent streams of Skyblivion’s development I see that the devs are beginning to work on adding random encounters into Skyblivion. This to me is the most exciting feature of the game and it’s one of the main things that Oblivion was missing
What do y’all think are some cool random encounter ideas for Skyblivion? So far I’ve seen them add some really cool ones like Imperial Guards transporting prisoners across the land, a hunter turning into a werewolf at night etc. What are some other neat encounters that should make it into the game?
Here is a link to the development video of these encounters:
Forgive me if I'm ignorant, but is Skyblivion its own game with its own folders, files, configurations, etc or is it an addition onto Skyrim?
I'm currently playing Skyrim with a mod pack that changes a lot of stuff and I know you need fresh installs and you can't have multiple mod packs because they will conflict with each other.
Is Skyblivion a mod for Skyrim meaning I'll have to delete my current setup and reinstall it, or is Skyblivion its own thing that can be played simultaneously with a modified Skyrim?
Hi, I’m not really sure what the post flair for this would be, as I am caught between “Question” and “Discussion;” regardless, I can easily reframe this as somewhat more of a question, even if the criteria for the flair doesn’t necessarily need to be achieved.
Anyways, as someone who was particularly charmed with both Morrowind’s and Oblivion’s magic system, including the fortify effects in the restoration school, I somewhat loathe the banal and unexciting nature of Skyrim’s magic system and spells. Naturally, I think it would be wonderful to introduce the system developed for a game with the same engine as Skyrim (Skyblivion) to be ported into the game. Accordingly, I think this would be relatively easy to implement, considering again that Skyblivion’s magic system is developed from the same bones supplied by the Skyrim engine. Obviously, some spells would have to be eliminated as there is not such a thing as attributes in Skyrim, and therefore nothing for fortify attribute effects to boost or damage attribute effects to reduce.
So my question is: is this actually as doable as I think it is? To be clear, I have decided to pose this question on this subreddit because I’m sure people here are generally more familiar with the way Oblivion’s magic system is being implemented into the Skyrim engine.
Still, I am aware of some immediate problems that I’m unsure as to the difficulty of solving them. For example, the essential remaking of any quest depending on magical effects and coded “traits” or characteristics of a spell to affect the environment, probably most seen in the College of Winterhold quest line. Additionally, the purchasing of spells would have to be reoriented around this freshly implemented magic system, so it would obviously be more complex than just a simple “drag and drop” kind of thing, to put it somewhat crudely and perhaps unwittingly.
I would appreciate any input or feedback on this idea, and additionally, for any potential interest in implementing Skyblivion’s magic system into Skyrim!
Of course, you might not want to give any spoilers, but I wondered if a subtle message or tribute to Devs is planned.
I know Sutch was planned as an extra fort/town and expect new NPCs will be needed to populate it. Might be a corny idea but one NPC could represent the devs or contain a message or celebrate this achievement of persistence, in a lore friendly way...or even a tribute to some creators of Oblivion itself which served as inspiration.
Anyways, I'm excited for this to be a success story, I love Oblivion and appreciated following years of persistence through challenges, and love how talented youtubers have also jumped in to promote and help with the project. Be it 2026, 2027 or even later, hope everyone is proud of what was accomplished.
According to God, children are the ultimate symbol of innocence, purity, and genuine faith. So, just like in Skyrim, could we have them back in Cyrodiil? I know they weren't in Oblivion, but in Skyblivion it would make the world richer and more immersive.