Bethesda's long-rumored Oblivion remaster is now all but official, thanks to a leak from developer Virtuous Games that blabbed a bunch of screens and box art all over the internet yesterday. You might expect that development would take the wind out of the sails of Skyblivion, the fan-made Oblivion remake in the Skyrim engine, but that's apparently not the case—in fact, Skyblivion project lead Rebelzize says the upcoming official remaster "changes nothing."
"To be clear this changes nothing for me," Rebelzize wrote on X.
"This always was a passion project and still is until the end. For the community it's a win-win as you get twice the amount of Oblivion this year. All love and no hate towards the people who made the official remaster."
After all:
One very interesting aspect of all this is the possibility that Skyblivion could be just as good—or hell, maybe even better—than Bethesda's official remaster. The official work will no doubt have a range of tech improvements and quality of life features that Skyblivion will lack, but the fan remake looks pretty great—and gets bonus points for being a fan-made labor of love.
PC Gamer's Joshua Wolens expressed that sentiment while checking out a Skyblivion gameplay demo earlier this year: "I'll be honest, as much as I'd love to get my hands on an official re-do, I struggle to imagine it being markedly better than this fan attempt."
Speaking to VG247, Rebelzize said Skyblivion "was all about passion from the start and it still is," and expressed gratitude that Bethesda hasn't forced a halt to the project now that its own remaster is in the works.
"I've gotten more out of this than I ever imagined, friends, experience and it made me realize I wanted to work in the gaming industry which I ended up doing," he said. "At the end of the day it only exists because Bethesda allowed it, so I guess if the official remake is real it's good that we were still allowed to exist at all."
And he does seem legitimately unbothered by the possibility of being overshadowed by the official Oblivion remaster. "I hope you will enjoy either the official or our remake," Rebelzize wrote in a follow-up post. "Either way thanks for the support and be kind to one another."
Since this got a lot more attention then I expected let me just say I hope you will enjoy either the official or our remake. Either way thanks for the support and be kind to one another pic.twitter.com/H0As5iwOemApril 16, 2025
Neither Skyblivion nor the official Oblivion remaster have a release date yet, but Skyblivion is slated to be out sometime in 2025, while Bethesda's take could show up pretty much anytime now.
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