There's a rug in Oblivion that's just a real life rug you can get

Oblivion Remastered guide - An Argonian surveying the Imperial City — (Image credit: Bethesda)

A sharp-eyed Oblivion Remastered player has noticed that the game contains a uniquely patterned rug… the exact same rug, in fact, that they've got in their kitchen.

Player Nakamanaka posted the below video clip to Reddit, saying "I have the same rug that Seridur has in his basement" with a laughing emoji, and showing the rug in-game before walking through their house to show the same rug in their kitchen.

Same rug 😭🥰 from r/oblivion

"I’m no scholar of the nine, but yes, it is the exact same design," responds Rabbithole-in-one.

The reason why? Based on past experience, when things like photographs have ended up in games uncredited, this is probably down to one of three things. Most likely is a texture artist that worked on the game having this rug themselves and using it as visual reference, possibly by scanning in their own photo of the pattern. Alternatively, it could be the product of a Google image search. Or, finally, it's part of an asset pack Bethesda or Virtuos has used during development.

The question every Oblivion fan will want answered 'is where do I get one?' Sadly that is yet to be answered, though I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this is a rug found in one of the big American department stores at one point in the past. As for its origins:

"It was an 'I'm moving and don't want to take this with me' hand-me-down from my husband's step mom," said OP Nakanamaka, "so it might have been a popular one in the early 2000s."

No doubt the Internet sleuths will turn up the IRL rug at some point. But it is quite amusing, once you know this is a real rug, to look back at its presence in Oblivion: and just how out-of-place it is in this kinda medieval-time fantasy setting.

I've asked Bethesda whether it has any comment on the similarity or how this rug ended up in the game, and will update with any response. Hey, maybe Cyrodil has an IKEA we don't know about.

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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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