Bethesda veteran says Oblivion Remastered can't be called a remake, unlike Final Fantasy 7 and Resident Evil 2 which are "completely new games"

Last year's The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered did a lot more than slap a fresh coat of paint on the 2006 RPG, with environments (but not necessarily character models) that look straight out of a 2026 AAA release, but as anyone who's played the original game knows, it's still very much Oblivion, lovable jank and all. While there was a lot of deliberation about what and what not to modernize during development, Todd Howard and co. drew a hard line between remaster and full-blown remake, opting to market the game as a polished-up version of the original rather than something all new. That's because, in the words of associate art director Dan Lee, it shares the same "bones" as the original Oblivion.