Fan-made remakes of widespread video games are a dangerous factor. You by no means know when you are going to sink years of your life right into a ardour undertaking, solely to eat a stop and desist letter from an costly lawyer representing a faceless company overlord that forces you to both change it up or shut it down completely. That appeared like an actual danger for Skyblivion, the bold, long-running effort to recreate Oblivion within the Skyrim engine, particularly after it grew to become clear that Bethesda was working by itself official Oblivion remaster.
Fortunately, on this case the end result was very completely different: As an alternative of forcing an finish to Skyblivion to guard its industrial pursuits, Bethesda despatched a key for Oblivion Remastered to everybody engaged on it.
“Large because of our associates @bethesdastudios.com for his or her continued assist of Skyblivion!” the mod crew wrote on X. “As huge followers, we’re past grateful for the beneficiant reward of Oblivion Remastered sport keys for our total modding crew! This implies a lot to us. Thanks for all the things, @bethesda.web!”
And, to assuage any issues that that is all a fake-out, the crew mentioned in a follow-up message that “Bethesda made it clear that they haven’t any intention of shutting down our undertaking.”
After all, it might be a double-secret fake-out: Give the Skyblivion crew a truckload of Oblivion Remastered keys, after which simply await all the things to grind to a halt whereas they blow a 12 months or two enjoying it. I’d 100% fall for that.
The Skyblivion crew lately expressed “all love and no hate” for Oblivion Remastered, regardless of its potential to steal their thunder, saying their mod “all the time was a ardour undertaking and nonetheless is till the tip,” and it is nice to see Bethesda reply in type. It is in all probability over-optimistic but it surely’d be good to see extra of this type of factor sooner or later.
Talking of issues which can be good, the primary day of launch goes exceedingly effectively for Oblivion Remastered: Lower than 12 hours after launch it is surpassed 150,000 concurrent gamers on Steam alongside—greater than double the height of Skyrim Particular Version—the person critiques are good, mods work, and gamers aren’t even mad in regards to the new horse armor. Cannot ask for something greater than that.