Importance Score: 45 / 100 🔵
Oblivion Remastered: Enhanced Graphics, Same Speedrunning Exploits
The new Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion remaster quickly revealed itself to be a visually stunning UE5 update layered over the beloved, albeit janky, original. This has led to some fascinating outcomes, such as a cherished, poorly delivered line receiving high-quality lip-syncing. More importantly, it has allowed speedrunners to seamlessly return to familiar strategies.
Prolific Oblivion content creator Bacon_ (whose videos you’ve likely encountered) demonstrated this by completing the remastered game in a mere 12.5 minutes. This impressive feat was achieved by exploiting a long-standing glitch from the original Oblivion: a door nestled in the Imperial City Temple District that leads directly to the game’s conclusion.
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The Temple District Door Skip
For those unfamiliar, the climactic scene in Oblivion, where Sean Bean’s character makes a heroic sacrifice, occurs in a modified version of the Imperial City’s Temple District. This “variant cell,” or loading zone, is distinct from the district encountered during regular gameplay.
Oddly enough, a door leading to this variant cell exists beneath the Temple District’s main temple, providing a direct route to the game’s final events, bypassing the majority of the primary storyline.
Oblivion Speedrunning History
Since its discovery, this door has become a focal point for Oblivion any% speedruns, with runners continuously seeking faster and more efficient ways to reach it.
Past Exploits: The Paint Brush Ladder
One popular, albeit now outdated, method involved exploiting a glitch to suspend paint brushes in mid-air. By carefully positioning these brushes, players could create a makeshift ladder to reach the top of the temple. From there, a lack of collision detection allowed them to descend beneath the structure to the door’s location.
Bacon_’s UE5 Physics Glitch
In the remastered version, Bacon_ leveraged new physics glitches introduced by UE5 to access the same door. According to the video description, “I am using an Orc because of the Berserk greater power that has Fortify Fatigue.”
The process involves:
- Casting Berserk
- Depleting stamina while seated
- Manipulating the camera using the scroll wheel to clip through walls
“I cast it then use all my stamina and let the power run out while sitting on a chair making me ragdoll because my stamina is in the negatives, while ragdolling I go ham on the scrollwheel which places the camera way above your head and lets you clip your camera into walls.”
“I use that to access the Temple of the One door, doing the skip.”
The outcome is reminiscent of other famous speedrunning techniques, such as Mario’s intricate butt-jumps in Mario 64 or the infamous Shadowheart-in-a-box strategy in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Beyond Speedrunning: Exploring Tamriel
While speedruns are always entertaining, many players are eager to immerse themselves in the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines, savoring every detail of the Oblivion remastered experience .
Bacon_’s YouTube channel serves as a repository of classic Oblivion gameplay moments, with recent “remasters” of notable clips further showcasing the game’s enduring charm.