The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – A Timeless Classic That Defined Open-World RPGs

Before gaming got buried under live-service nonsense and ideological hand-wringing, Bethesda made something that just wanted you to live in it. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion launched in 2006 as a flagship title for the Xbox 360, and twenty years later I came back to it expecting a dated relic. What I found instead surprised me: this is the most peaceful, immersive, downright relaxing game I've sat with in years. I went in as a Nord Barbarian named PohnDip, wandered Cyrodiil for dozens of hours, and came away feeling calmer than when I started. That's not what I expected to write about a 2006 RPG — but it's the truth, and it's the whole review.

Wokeness: 0.0

Nothing to report, and that's exactly right. Oblivion comes from an era when developers built worlds because the lore demanded it, not because a sensitivity consultant signed off on it. Cyrodiil's races, cultures, and factions exist to serve the fantasy, and the game never once stops to lecture you. The Dark Brotherhood doesn't care about your feelings. The Thieves Guild doesn't preach. You're free to be a hero, a villain, or something in between, and the narrative bends to you, not to an agenda. It's a clean 0 — a game confident enough to just be a game.

Gameplay: 8.3

This is where Oblivion is both brilliant and quietly flawed, and the flaw is worth being honest about. The freedom is staggering even now — hundreds of quests, dozens of dungeons, and a build system that lets you make almost any hero you can imagine. Combat is loose by modern standards; melee feels a little floaty. For 2006, it's perfectly fine.

The real wrinkle is the leveling system, and it's a design choice I'd call backwards. To play well on higher difficulties, you're essentially forced into a custom class, carefully hand-picking your major skills (which drive your level) and babysitting your minors (which feed your stat growth). Get it wrong and the level-scaled enemies simply outgrow you. The problem is that doing it "right" means gamifying your own stat growth — tracking numbers on your phone or a notepad — and that shatters the immersion the game is otherwise so good at building.

So I made a choice that turned out to be the key to the whole experience: I picked the pre-made Barbarian class, played a Nord, and nudged the difficulty down whenever combat got rough. And I'm convinced that's the way Oblivion was meant to be played. Not min-maxed with a spreadsheet, but relaxed into — pick a class that fits the character in your head, drop the difficulty until the numbers stop nagging you, and let yourself sink into the world. Played that way, the "flawed" system stops mattering, and what's left is pure, unhurried exploration.

Story: 8.5

The main quest — the Oblivion Gates, Mehrunes Dagon, closing the jaws of hell — is solid epic fantasy, and Patrick Stewart's Emperor Uriel Septim opens the game with real gravity (criminally short as his role is). But Oblivion's writing truly shines in the side content. The Dark Brotherhood questline is legendary for a reason — Lucien Lachance recruiting you in the dead of night, the murder-mystery party where you pick off the guests one by one — genuinely dark, genuinely clever writing that plenty of modern RPGs still can't match. The Thieves Guild, the Arena, and a hundred standalone quests show a creative confidence that holds up two decades later.

Graphics: 7.8

Let's be honest — the visuals haven't all aged gracefully, and the infamous potato faces were a meme even at launch. Some NPC models are passable, some are unintentionally hilarious. There's framerate dip and texture pop-in out in the open world, and loading while traveling is frequent. But the art direction is a different story. Cyrodiil itself is beautiful — rolling green hills, autumn forests, ancient ruins, gothic chapels at dusk, and the hellish red-and-black Oblivion planes all have a distinct, idyllic-fantasy identity. The faces are dated; the world is timeless.

Audio: 9.3

Jeremy Soule's soundtrack is the soul of this game, and it's the single biggest reason Oblivion feels the way it does. The sweeping orchestral score is soothing, almost meditative — it gives Cyrodiil an unmistakable identity and does half the work of pulling you into that relaxed, reflective headspace. Voice acting is a mixed bag in the charming way everyone remembers: the celebrity performances are excellent, but the tiny pool of voice actors means you'll hear the same handful of voices across hundreds of NPCs. Ambient sound design is superb.

Replayability: 9.0

This is where Oblivion earns its place. Between ten races, twenty-one birthsigns, endless class combinations, and a mountain of content, you could play half a dozen times and still find something new. The faction questlines pull you toward different playstyles, and the moral flexibility means no two runs need to feel alike. It's the kind of game that keeps calling you back years after you thought you were done — and honestly, now that I know how relaxing it is, I suspect I'll load it up again just to wander.

Oblivion is what happens when a studio pours everything into world-building and player freedom instead of chasing trends. It has rough edges — the loose combat, the potato faces, the backwards leveling math — but the total package is something rarer than a technical showcase: it's a place. The longer my sessions ran, the more immersed, relaxed, and reflective I felt. Peace, discovery, a quiet sense of wonder — that's what Oblivion gave me twenty years on, and that's why it's still worth talking about in 2026. If you've never played it, drop the difficulty, pick a class that feels right, and just go live in Cyrodiil for a while.

Played it min-maxed with a notepad, or just relaxed into it like I did? Tell me how you wander Cyrodiil in the comments.