Returning to Oblivion

Update: I published a follow-up to this article on 2022-12-03. Read it here!

I’ve probably spent more time telling stories about Oblivion than I have actually playing the game.¹ That time I randomly found Dark Brotherhood robes in someone’s basement during a burglary. That time my English teacher spent a good portion of class talking about how cool the vampire questline was. The mess that was horse armor DLC.²

I never even came close to beating the game when I first bought it on Xbox 360. I’d launch it every now and again, sneak around, do some stealing, do some assassinations, and close it down. After I swapped over to PC I ended up buying it in a Steam sale and going all in on mods… racking up maybe 10 hours in the process and never getting past Kvatch (the first phase of the main quest).

I recently came back to the game, and oh man. It’s still so beautiful. And so much of what it does is so very interesting.

Sometimes a game pioneers a new system or a technological innovation that becomes key to the entire experience. It doesn’t always have to the mechanical focal point of the game; I’m talking less about Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System than I am about Half-Life 2’s physics engine. It’s not the focal point of the game’s core loop, but it’s a key part of the experience and the game’s designers clearly wanted to show off everything it can do.³

For Oblivion, that system is Radiant AI.

Here’s a recent article from the escapist talking about the system in far more detail than I’m planning to here, digging into the development history and some of the insanity that resulted from the original draft build. On a basic level, the system establishes a set of time and need-based routines for every NPC in the game. Around 7pm, you’ll find most of a town’s residents in the inn, socializing and eating. During working hours, they’ll be manning their shops or wandering the streets chatting with ‘friends’.

What I didn’t realize until now is just how many of the game’s quests are designed to center this system. In the last few hours of playing I’ve had quests say:

• “Come back and talk to this person when their boss isn’t around.”
• “Follow this merchant after he closes up shop to see where he goes.”
• “Search this man’s house when he’s not home.”
• “You can find the guard captain in the barracks after dark or patrolling the streets during the day.”

So much of the game is designed to show off the Radiant AI system, emphasizing NPC routines and using that structure to enable interesting interactions. It’s honestly super cool and there aren’t many RPGs in 2022 that leverage systems quite like this one.⁴

And Skyrim’s Solitude looks like a village compared to Oblivion’s Imperial City.

If you want to finance Todd Howard’s next Skyrim’s release, all links above head to the Humble Bundle store (and I get a small portion of any purchase you make using them).

Read the follow-up post!