Skyblivion, the ambitious mod recreating The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion in Skyrim's engine, has released a new video showing the dark and spooky side of Cyrodiil. Sure, the video was posted a day late for Halloween—or 364 days early for next Halloween—but who cares? I'm always excited to get another eyeful of the mod's progress.
Best of all, the Skyblivion mod team is never content to just give us a quick little clip: this new video is a whopping 25 minutes long and packed with stuff to gawk at, from familiar locations to redesigned levels to new creatures and characters. Sit back and take a long look at what they've cooked up:
The video begins with Quagmire, the horror-filled realm of Oblivion that's part of the Vaermina quest in the original game, which involves a cursed wizard and a Daedric prince. We also visit the town of Hackdirt, home to a memorable missing persons case (well, missing Argonian). Next we go spelunking in a reimagined Haunted Mine, which is exciting to see. Formerly just a standard goblin HQ, Haunted Mine has been completely redesigned and will give players a mystery to solve about miners who went missing in the ancient cave centuries ago. Spooky.
Next we're off to the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary, where we get to see a remastered assassin hideaway. There is even a new assassin to meet, the Dark Guardian. He's a reanimated skeleton in some pretty sick looking Brotherhood armor.
I hope—hope hope hope—this murderous skeleton can become my companion when I play the mod.
The second half of the video is dedicated to Oblivion's Vampire Cure quest—one of the longest and most complicated quests in the game. The video skips past all the gathering of ingredients and soulstones you need to do, but it shows the visit to a completely redesigned Redwater Slough, which is much bigger and more ornate than the original cave.
In addition to some puzzles the cave is filled with zombies, skeleton warriors, and the legendary vampire Hindaril, for whom the cave has become a prison. The encounter with Hindaril himself has been redesigned as well, as he's now an extremely powerful multi-stage boss with more spells and abilities than in the original game.
Gotta say, this mod continues looking absolutely great. The only downside is the release year of 2025, which feels desperately far off every time I watch a new Skyblivion video. But considering The Elder Scrolls 6 is still probably five years away, I guess I can wait just another two years or for Skyblivion.
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