Who would have suspected Bethesda to shadow drop Oblivion yesterday! Well, quite a lot of us, in fact.
But regardless of whether fans had already prepped themselves for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered or not, they turned up in huge numbers.
Over on Steam, which publicly reveals its player data, Oblivion Remastered has an 182,298 concurrent player peak so far – placing it ahead of anything else on Steam except stalwarts Counter-Strike 2, PUBG and Dota 2.
Oblivion Remastered is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the best-selling game on Steam right now, and has launched with a Very Positive user review rating from those who have played.
Of course, Steam’s numbers only count for a fraction of those who have jumped in so far. Oblivion Remastered is also available via the Microsoft Store on PC, and via the PC Game Pass subscription, as well as on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, including via Game Pass Ultimate.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for combined player numbers from Bethesda when they’re available.
As announced – and launched – yesterday, the Oblivion Remaster is really more of a ground-up remake using Unreal Engine 5 from talented co-developer Virtuos.
The new version of Bethesda’s classic role-player includes the game’s previous expansion content and boasts various gameplay tweaks such as a refreshed levelling system inspired by Skyrim, additional dialogue, modern controls including sprinting. It now also runs at 4K 60fps.
Last night, Bethesda said it had no plans for Oblivion Remastered official mod support, though plenty of unofficial mods have popped up now anyway. Bethesda also made the welcome gesture of gifting access to the Oblivion Remaster to the team of fans currently remaking Oblivion in the Skyrim engine.