The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered - Review and Comparison of Graphic Settings

Like most remasters of old games lately, the updated version of the game was made on Unreal Engine 5.

Most graphic settings have 4 parameters: Ultra, High, Medium and Low. The settings that were not included in the review did not have a visible effect on the image quality, or the difference is visible only in dynamics, which is quite difficult to trace.

The first in line is the Draw Distance. There is no visible difference between Ultra and High, the differences only appear when switching from High to Medium, reducing the quality and relief of the landscape. The transition from Medium to Low is also almost unnoticeable.

Vegetation quality. There is a noticeable difference between all modes, which is manifested in a gradual decrease in the quality and quantity of vegetation on the surface of the earth, but there is no noticeable effect on trees.

Shadow quality. There are differences between all presets, but they are not very noticeable: there is a decrease in smoothing for shadows and the clarity of their contours. The difference is most visible when switching to low, as a light haze appears and many shadows from small objects and soft shadows disappear.

Global illumination. There are noticeable differences between all lighting modes: when you lower the settings, the lighting becomes less voluminous, many soft shadows disappear and the depth of the picture is lost. The transition from ultra to high is most noticeable.

Texture quality. There is a difference between all modes: surface textures become lower quality as presets decrease, but the differences are most visible when moving from medium to low.

Reflections. There are no visible differences between Ultra and High, but switching to medium immediately catches the eye: the surface of the water becomes more matte from glossy and reflections lose detail and quality.

Lumen hardware ray tracing. Oddly enough, in such an important parameter as hardware ray tracing, a visible difference is noticeable only between Ultra and Low settings, which manifested itself in a slight decrease in brightness and lighting intensity.

Software Ray Tracing. There are only 2 values: On and Off. The differences are in the reduction of the realism of lighting and the reduction of the quantity and quality of soft shadows and light.

Standard anti-aliasing in the game is represented by the traditional Unreal Engine set of TSR, TAA and FXAA modes. Despite the fact that there are no clearly visible differences between TSR and TAA, all TSR gives a slightly sharper image. Switching to FXAA immediately adds "soap" and artifacts to the picture, and completely disabling it, although it removes all soap, also adds additional artifacts to the vegetation. Let's immediately consider the upscalers in the native, since they are often more useful than anti-aliasing. The set is also standard: DLSS, FSR and XeSS. It is rather strange that between DLSS and FSR, if there is a difference, it is quite difficult to find it at a glance, but switching to XeSS in this game is instantly noticeable, since this upscaler immediately makes the image quite soapy and adds artifacts that are not very noticeable in statics, but instantly become visible in dynamics. The choice between upscalers in this case is limited to DLSS and FSR and depends only on the video card manufacturer and user preferences.

To sum it up, we can say that in the remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on Unreal Engine 5 A lot of graphical settings have been implemented, many of which really affect the visual perception of the game. Parameters such as the quality of vegetation, global illumination, shadows and textures demonstrate a noticeable difference between presets and give the player the opportunity to choose a balance between quality and performance.

However, despite the use of a modern engine and support for technologies such as Lumen and DLSS/FSR/XeSS upscalers, the visual part of the project leaves an ambiguous impression. Most of the elements of the environment look decent, especially nature and architecture, but the character models and their textures are extremely poorly made and outdated - so much so that they do not differ much from the original of 2006. This causes natural bewilderment: almost two decades later, players are again faced with the same visual problems as at the time of the original game's release.

In addition, it is worth noting the chronic problem Unreal Engine 5 - lack of optimization. Even on powerful systems, there are drops in performance, freezes and delays, especially when using ray tracing or high levels of global illumination. This makes the remaster not the most comfortable experience even for modern configurations, despite the visual update.

A separate disappointment is the overall stylistic feeling: due to the typical UE5 palette and repetitive visual patterns, the game loses some of its uniqueness and becomes another “similar to everything else” project. This is especially sad for such a cult title as Oblivion, where the atmosphere and visual style of the original played an important role in shaping the gameplay and emotional experience.

In the end, this is a remaster with ambitions, but no breakthrough. It adds a few modern graphical solutions, but by and large does not go beyond the limits of "just an upscale", devoid of deep reworking and visual freshness. It is more for those who already love the game and want to look at it with a slightly sharper picture - but is unlikely to be able to really captivate a new player who is getting acquainted with this part of the series for the first time.