Why Bethesda chose to remaster Skyrim over Oblivion

Players looking for an excuse to jump back into the world of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had their wishes granted when Bethesda revealed that a remastered version of the game would release later this year as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition at their E3 press 2016 conferenceBut why Skyrim and not its predecessor? Bethesda’s vice president of PR and marketing, Pete Hines, recently explained in an interview with GameSpot why the company decided to remake Skyrim rather than The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. According to Hines, Bethesda may had considered it, but ultimately decided the resources needed for said remaster would be better utilized toward a new game.

Mike Nitroy
August 8, 2016
in Gaming

But why Skyrim and not its predecessor? Bethesda’s vice president of PR and marketing, Pete Hines, recently explained in an interview with GameSpot why the company decided to remake Skyrim rather than The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. According to Hines, Bethesda may had considered it, but ultimately decided the resources needed for said remaster would be better utilized toward a new game.

“Oblivion is 10 years old, so the amount of work for that engine and that tech to bring it and remaster it and do all the things we wanted to do was significant,” he said. “It’s not impossible, but it was mountainous. It was either like, go make an entire new game or do Skyrim.”

According to Hines, the studio had already ported the latest Elder Scrolls title to Xbox One for a technical demo, making it an even simpler decision.

“It just seemed to be a much closer path,” he said. “It was the most successful game that we had ever done before Fallout 4, so it already had a huge audience.”

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition launches on PS4, Xbox One and PC on October 28th, 2016.