In fact, a bunch of you have already jumped in and started modding the game. We have over 270 mods already uploaded to the site, with more than 421,000 unique downloads. These include things like a Simple Photomode, a new HUD, Better HUD, and the Ayleid Reshade, a preset created to bring back the vivid colours of the original game.
So, what do we know so far about how the game works?
As soon as the game dropped, we were all frantically downloading it here at the office, ready to poke around and find out how it all worked. However, less than an hour after release, the super-talented users in the community with a passion for reverse engineering had already cracked the game wide open and were discussing their findings, so we're keeping an eye on their conversations and supporting them if we can. Special thanks to doodlum, shad0wshayd3 and the other members of the xSE RE Discord server for providing us with a summary of what they've found so far!
Oblivion Remastered uses an interesting hybrid of two different game engines - a modified version of the original 2006 Oblivion game engine and Unreal Engine 5.3. If you take a peek into the installation folder, you'll actually find a large chunk of the original game assets still intact, including the original game plugin files.
Below are a few key things we've collated from our observations and what we've been hearing in the community. Take everything you read with the biggest pinch of salt at this early stage:
- The core data for the game is still loaded from the plugin files, as with the original games; however, each game object (record) in the plugins is mapped from Oblivion Engine to Unreal Engine using JSON. This means that the traditional methods of detecting conflicts may not work anymore.
- When adding new content to the game, the JSON data for this content would need to be inserted.
- The JSON structures for many game objects include additional values that did not exist in the original game, and the purpose of them is currently unclear.
- Any text that is added to the game via plugins seems to show up with an "[NL]" prefix, which is currently thought to mean "Not Localised". Investigations are ongoing to work out how to make mods that don't have this prefix.
- The new Unreal Engine versions of the textures, models, particles and animation files appear to still be linked to the original version in some cases.
- The Level of Detail (LOD) for this game appears to use a completely new system, most likely heavily controlled by the Unreal Engine side of the game.
- The game uses several scripting languages across different systems, including an updated version of OBScript, Unreal Engine Code, and Unreal Engine Blueprints.
- Concerning a possible script extender for the game (equivalent to xOBSE), there is a challenge of the Creation Engine script extender devs being unfamiliar with Unreal Engine and Unreal Engine modding being unfamiliar with Creation Engine script extenders.
- There are some hints within the game code that there may be a Construction Set coming for this game, but that may also simply reference the tools used by the developers.
- On the Xbox Game Pass store, the game states it includes "In-Game Purchases", which could imply the eventual integration of the Bethesda.net paid mods store.
- The Xbox Game Pass of the game came with a lot of extra debug data that is helping with the efforts to reverse engineer it.
- A version of xEdit is in development to support creating plugin files for Oblivion Remastered, but it is currently largely untested and not yet available on Nexus Mods.
To heavily summarise, there's some potential here, but unless we get an official Construction Set from Bethesda/Virtuos, there's a lot of reverse engineering work to be done before modding can be fully realised. Please don't badger the super smart folks working on this; let them cook.
Porting Permissions
One thing that is really important to remember when modding for Oblivion Remastered is that any porting of mods from the “old Oblivion” must have permission from the original mod author, either by contacting them directly or if they have stated this in the ‘Permissions and credits’ section of their mod page. It is also worth noting that it is unlikely that any of the old mods will work “out of the box” for this remaster.
What We Have Planned
We have already worked on the official extension for Vortex, which is up and ready for you all here, and there are plans to add Oblivion Remastered to the Nexus Mods app roadmap too once the modding scene becomes clearer.
Will It Support Modding?
At the moment, the official response from Bethesda on this is that no, mods are not officially supported for the game. They have stated that:
If you are experiencing gameplay issues while playing with mods, it’s recommended you first try uninstalling your mods, then verify your games files on Steam, or the Xbox App.
A big shoutout to Pickysaurus for his help on the technical part of this post. Let us know what you’re hoping to see modded for the game in the comments!
189 comments
Further off topic comments about this will be removed and accounts subject moderation where appropriate.
Looking at the ui and Oblivion's nostalgia based assets, I'm seeing a huge amount of potential for modding tools to replace virtually everything about the way you play this game. I expect we have something amazing hidden under the surface of the vanilla game and it has
the potential to become one of community's favorite modding experiences. Of course that's after all the starting out modding prototypes
are refined and become standard tools for us.
Man I'm just thinking about how rough some of the nostalgia parts are in this game but I think it might be a blessing in disguise. Just think how much more it'll change when some of the major modders get a hold of them.I mean that character creator is sooooo simple, imagine
what the characters are gonna look like when someone refines them through modded racemenu's ui.
Also I'm seeing alot of the comments are more about worry over how the game will go considering the hybrid system between old and new era engines or about Bethesda's reservations about supporting mods rather than excitement over what mods will come out or how excited they are over having a new Elder's Scrolls remaster in the first place. C'mon though. Just give the modding tool dev's some time and they'll
figure out all the little bumps along the wayand before you know it we'll have a banger on our hands that's one of the community's new go
to's for modding goodness.
LASTLY I THINK SOMETHING REALLY NEEDS TO BE SAID AND I HAVEN'T SEEN ANYONE FOCUS ON THIS SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH THE NEW GAME.
That issue being no one started a comment thread of what mods ya'll looking forward to seeing!!! :3
Sooooo what mods are you guys looking forward to?
personally I'm a weeb who's stuck in between pushing the boundaries of how nice characters look and trying to make the game itself look as scary as possible.
What about you guys? ^.^
But first and foremost, I’d love to see my favorite quest mods again! Not sure if that’ll ever happen, though. Stuff like KotN Revelation, Order of the Dragon, Servant of the Dawn, Mannimarco Resurrection, Lost Spires, Nehrim 👀 - the list goes on.
I’ve been playing Oblivion since 2006, and the mods that came out in the following years are what made the game truly worthwhile.
Like Unique Landscapes, Better Cities, Creature Divrsity, Immersive Weapons, Armamentarium or Midas Magic Spells. With maybe a few npcs/armor mods from Skyrim like Apachii Sky Hair or Immersive armors, along with unofficial patchs and whatnot and I think it would be pretty much complete for me. Not sure how long it would take (nor if it will) to be at that state but I pray Talos for it.
One can dream, eh?
Seriously, though, I'm already trying to see what can be done to port OOO. It's not going to be easy, but maybe we can start small and build up as the tools get better.
Choosing a class is always an agonizing choice, and no matter what I choose, I'm never happy with it. The built-in classes seem not well-designed, so I do a custom class... But I absolutely cannot narrow down the skills I can't live without to 7. Maybe 8, although that would still feel a bit stingy, but not 7.
Getting rid of classes was one of the best changes they made for Skyrim, IMO. It's cool you can pick a class to give your character background and flavor in your headcanon...the same way you can pick a region of origin. Let it give some initial bonuses for a head start in certain areas. But then let me play the way I want. I don't want to be shoehorned into a particular playstyle for the next 100+ hours because of one choice I made at the very beginning.
Or at the very least, a mod with different body configurations!
Also, since Bethesda said that no mods will be supported, that is only because they overloaded the game with junk (honestly, the reflections are way too sharp and bad and only raytraced thing appears to be light and shadows and reflections are rendered via some odd mechanics that makes your sword to have a reflection in water even though you are 300 meters away from it... complete nonsense to be honest and the reflection render is highly unnecessary and is also a performance killer for some people.
On the other hand, the game is in UE5 which is easy to mod so I do assume that people will just make mods work themselves like they always do... About the open interior mod, I do hope that someone or some group is gonna work on it immediately when they can. I would do it myself but I cant really spend time doing such things cuz it wont give me anything back but if no mod comes to surface within a few months up to a year, I think I may be able to do it myself... Its such a disappointment to see a game in 2025 that has more loading screens than Cyberpunk, KCD2 and a bunch of other games combined... Like legit, the amount of loading screens I saw in Oblivion within 6 hours, was like 1 year worth of loading screens... Cuz essentially I see one every 10 to 20 minutes when exploring and one every 1 to 5 minutes when in a city...
I'm not 100% sold on some of the choices Virtuos made here. Combat collision detection in particular seems really bad (Goblin face coming through my shield etc.).
Loading screens are hardly a major concern IMO and removing them would likely require a totally different game engine. The UE5 veneer used here is impressive but only skin deep, so to speak.
nm: you meant interiors, not the cities..........
Considering the jump from 5 GB to 120 GB, I was expecting the game to be atleast a bit more up to modern standard... After seeing the new Stalker, Awoved and Atomfall doing the same thing with interior cells/teleportation instead of opening doors, I dont think saying that a 20 years old game being compared to modern titles is valid here cuz most modern titles completely ignore modern standards and those whom follow them are currently top tier. For gods sake, Rockstar did it in RDR2, CDPR did it in Cyberpunk 2077 and Warhorse did it in both Kingdomcome games and now when you realize that RDR2 and Cyberpunk 2077 are quite old games at this point, there is no excuse.
I do stand behind *If you are to do something, either do it right or dont do it at all* and the animations, collisions and other Bethesda jank make the games what they are... I am totally cool with that cuz these quirks actually made me fall in LOVE with Bethesda games (except Starfield which is younger than Cyberpunk, RDR2 and first Kingdomcome and yet still use cells system like if it was a 20 years old game). So even if it was just open cities and open some vendors or open player house, I would take it as an improvement but I really dont fancy going into the city and seeing loading screen, load in to see puked out textures for like 3 seconds before shaders wake up and HD LOD's load in while having 20 FPS before it snaps back to 60 and then rinse and repeat every time I go from vendor to vendor. The game does look amazing and I do like the whole thing with this one exception... I really dont want to be hating on the devs or anything, its just the loading screens that are making me not want to continue.
So yeah, move or reshape a cell is quite simple taks but move spawn locations and quest locations within said cells to correct positions, for me to do that, its nearly impossible.
I thank Bethesda from the bottom of my heart for making possible the remastering of Oblivion, a game that at the time I couldn't get through (and obviously couldn't buy) all because at the time I didn't have the right equipment, I was left wanting to buy it and play it, and it was frustrating.
Eventually I was able to get a mid-range computer, and as soon as I could, I bought the original Oblivion on GOG (almost all Bethesda games I have them on GOG, I like that platform), I installed them and as I have a vice with mods, I installed mods that did not break the lore. In the end, I didn't manage to pass it completely, because of some difficulties.
Now I have the opportunity to play it again and remember some scenes and moments of the original, but with a totally renewed aspect.
I've been amazed with the work, the people behind this remastering have done something great.
At least me, I am very grateful to those people, it is an impeccable work, and although I have had problems again with my equipment because it does not run well, (16 to 20 fps outside) (30 to 45 fps indoors, medium low quality) (usually the games with UE5, I do not run them well) I am enjoying it, it has been a purchase without hesitation, because just in the month that I had my birthday, the game came out.
A pleasant surprise for many of us and will live long into eternity thanks to the great work of the modders community.
It has some little things to improve and some to remove, but time will tell how the game progresses.
Greetings.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6194
https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivionremastered/mods/366
-they diddled half of the melee skills and removed special attacks
-many spells dont work (chamelion invis and light)
- staff of worms dont work
- game has a vram leak that causes crashes
- the new voicelines are bland and drain personality from many characters
- the new graphics are high in fidelity low in style
i dont hate it and its pretty good but its far from perfect and feels unfinihsed
TLDR:
I agree with you Unreal engine is a problem here which it shouldn't be if they remade it completely in UE and released project files or something like a kit (they still could) that would let us edit a whole game, we could do whatever we want, Metahumans for npcs, modern skeleton for animations, face animations, wind animations, make use of LODs, seasons, weathers, combat mechanics, blueprint, not to mention they would train an entire army of people to use UE and that would benefit everyone far more then going back to CK for oblivion. today is far easier to learn and make new assets then back in 2006. And now talented coders and all other talent in community is wasting time by trying to make this work. But gates to nostalgia have reopened, and i am enjoying it.
as always,you are lifesavers and bring the changes people need to truly enjoy the different games!
Seeing how fast modding for the new remastered version of Oblivion is happening, I hope there will soon be a mod that will create wound details on the bodies of enemies. It doesn't have to be over the top,but it would be nice to see some slash,stab or burn marks and not feel like my weapons or spells simply kill someone without any effects to show.
There is already a mod that makes the blood decal permanent,which is already a step in the right direction!
LET THEM COOK! :D