In a gaming world where cease-and-desists are the most typical response to fan-made remakes or tribute games, it’s incredibly refreshing that Bethesda tolerates such projects. Following 2024’s free player-made Unity remake of Daggerfall, 2025 looks set to finally see the release of the long-developed total conversion mod of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in follow-up Skyrim’s engine.
In a new video called “The Path To Release (Skyblivion Roadmap 2024),” the team of modders known as TESRenewal explain that they’ve finished eight out of the game’s nine regions, having remade every detail of the 2006 game through bespoke creation. Each of Oblivion’s nine regions of Cyrodiil has unique flora and fauna for the team to recreate, and that’s on top of the enormous landscapes and cities.
The Gold Coast, for instance, is all but complete, with a new version of main city Anvil, “re-envisioned to realize its original concept art.” It’s the most wildly ambitious project, and as you’ll see in the video below, it looks wonderful.
Given Skyrim itself is 13 years old, it’s a testament to its engine how stunning Skyblivion is looking (albeit boosted by Bethesda’s own Skyrim: Special Edition upgrades). It does seem a bit galling that Bethesda will be sitting on whatever tech they’re using for The Elder Scrolls VI, but this still looks so, so much better than the 19-year-old Oblivion original.
The video’s narration makes clear that in order to release Skyblivion, they are legally required to remake every asset, including all the 3D models, which is a task of unimaginable magnitude. (Bethesda had a team of hundreds working for four years at full pay to do this the first time—this is a group of unpaid volunteers working in their spare time.) As such, the team is looking for more volunteers—especially for navmeshing, UI and 3D modeling—to help them get the game over the line.
This whole thing blows my mind. The Skyblivion Team has also written new music for each section of the game, and they’re even considering porting across the DLC when this main game is finished. Planned since 2011, prototyped by 2014, and in full development from 2018, they’re confident for a 2025 release, likely years ahead of Bethesda’s own follow-up, The Elder Scrolls VI: Hammerfell.
Kudos to Bethesda for letting extraordinary projects like these thrive, rather than sending takedown notifications and legal threats. To be able to play Skyblivion, you will be required to own legitimate versions of both Oblivion GOTY Deluxe and Skyrim: Special Edition, although given you can currently pick up the former for $5 and the latter for $10 on Steam, that’s not a big outlay.
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