I wasn’t anXbox 360kid. My older brother owned one that I played all the time, but I’ve always been a PlayStation gal at heart. During this console generation, while everyone was playing Halo 3, I played all major exclusives and third-party titles on the underratedPS3, includingThe Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.
Obviously, I’ll be the first one to admit the PS3 wasn’t perfect. It was light on exclusives in its early years and was infamously hard to develop for, meaning third-party titles performed and looked worse than rival platforms. Normally, this amounted to weaker graphics alongside the occasional framerate dip, but in the case ofBethesdatitles likeFallout 3and Oblivion, it could prove catastrophic. I should know, I played through both of them multiple times on PS3.
Bethesda Games Were Absolute Garbage On PS3
My first experience playing Fallout 3 was on Christmas Day 2008, using a CRT television that electrocuted me if I dared touch the screen. I not only didn’t know better, but marching about this nuclear wasteland using a standard resolution probably added to the vibes, considering it is already made up of ceaseless grays and browns. But even then, I could notice the flagging performance, awful textures, and loading times that were often overlong or led to crashes.
I might have gained the Platinum Trophy, but it was a hard road that, if given the option, I’d never walk again. The same thing happened with Fallout: New Vegas, Oblivion, and Skyrim. You could tell that porting open-world games like this involved Bethesda taking the Xbox 360 and PC versions and doing everything in its power to wrestle the game into submission, even if this meant lowering texture quality or dealing with subpar performance or loading times.
During my childhood, I didn’t have a choice in the matter, so I stuck with them. As an adult, I can look back on my half-baked experiences while revisiting these games in a better light.
And One Of Their Worst Traits Returns In Oblivion Remastered
Did you know that the longer you play Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Skyrim, the larger your save file will become? I’m not a game developer, but I imagine it has to do with accommodating all the quests you’ve completed, loot you’ve collected, and how the state of the open world has changed in the wake of your presence. Things grow more and more complicated as you play, and a larger file size is the cost. This shouldn’t be a problem, but on the PS3, Bethesda titles will begin to run worse the larger your save files become, to the extent that things will become unplayable.
The folks over atDigital Foundryrecently discovered that a similar problem exists in the console versions ofOblivion Remastered, with bugs, glitches, and performance seemingly getting far worse the more you play. The reasons for this remain unclear, but weeks after release, it’s obvious that both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S are in need of improvements to make the game look and perform at a higher level. I hope it’s not because of Unreal Engine 5…
Bethesda titles are already buggy, andthere is an undeniable charm to Oblivion Remastered keeping so many of the original game’s inconsistencies intact. But when these issues negatively impact how these games feel to play in the moment-to-moment, it’s much harder to forgive. I’m not the kid I used to be playing on a crappy old CRT willing to overlook these problems, because I’ve got no other choice; I’m an adult covering video games for a living with enough understanding of the industry to know this is a problem worth addressing.
Oblivion is a game that, even in a single playthrough, is designed to be played for dozens if not hundreds of hours. If you’re going after a completionist playthrough on console right now, it unfortunately seems like you’ll be walking down a road that is only going to get rougher as time goes on. The more quests you complete, loot you discover, and amount of the world you explore means the more performance problems and bugs that will rear their head.
It’s still a far cry from the diabolical PS3 versions of Fallout 3 and Skyrim from years past, but it sucks that decades later we’re still dealing with the same awkward problems.
