Oblivion Remastered: a crucial patch improves Series X performance – but it's still not good enough

Oblivion Remastered’s shadow drop surprised no-one given that it was among the worst kept secrets over the last few weeks, but what did surprise was the sheer extent of its visual overhaul. Described by creative director Todd Howard as keeping the bones – the core logic – of the original 2006 game intact, it’s fallen on developer Virtuos to use Unreal Engine 5 to re-work the visual layer. It’s a much needed move, and the remaster gives us the works, deploying the full suite of UE5 features as a graphics renderer. Cyrodiil’s lighting is transformed via its Lumen technology, allowing for an approximated form of ray traced global illumination and reflections, with dynamic shadows. Character models, materials, and effects are also reworked from scratch – plus we get a new locomotion system helping to address the rather stilted animations of the original. Best of all, Virtuos adds quality of life improvements like a modernised UI, levelling system, a sprint button, and even an updated lip-sync technology for NPCs.

We’ve already looked at the PC game but today’s console coverage is limited to the Xbox Series X and S versions of the game, with PS5 and Pro to follow. There’s a simple reason for this. Last Friday saw a new patch deployed for the Xbox versions of the game that make significant improvements to the game’s somewhat dodgy performance issues – but as of this writing, a matching PlayStation patch has yet to appear. Therefore, the focus shifts to Xbox Series X performance and quality modes and the singular Series S 30fps mode.

Kicking off with Series X, the game translates beautifully to Microsoft’s flagship machine with a software based form of UE5’s Lumen. Model quality and materials are standout, and the good news is that both of Series X’s graphics modes deliver the goods. The biggest change is in Lumen GI quality, where quality mode runs at a higher setting – resolving lighting and shadow bounces more accurately. This most notably affects the detailing of shade in interiors, and the bounce lighting on the undersides of arches. In the open world, shadow filtering is also much improved on quality mode, sharpening shadow detail at range, while tree LOD levels, and grass draw distances are pushed up a preset too. Most of the quality mode benefits are in long distance detail though, where up-close detail like textures, shadows and geometry are identical either way. Finally, native resolution is the other main dividing point. In order to hit 60 frames per second, the performance mode targets 1440p in the very best case – which it reaches on the inventory screen where it only has to render a character model. In practise though, Series X runs at a 1760×990 in most typical outdoor gameplay at 60fps. The 30fps quality mode meanwhile pushes to a higher 1620p peak value – again in the inventory screen – while most actual gameplay rests at a native 1440p in typical play, and a worst case figure coming in at 1296p.

In effect, the cost of running at 60fps boils down to an image quality hit, lower world LODs, and a drop in lumen GI quality. Clarity is reduced in still shots then, but we’re getting more pixel data per second this way – thanks to the doubling in frames rendered by the console. It’s my recommended pick despite the cutbacks, though there are some major performance issues to point out here. Testing frame-rate performance on Series X, the 60fps target is well met in most small areas – like dungeons, or inside the city walls. Here, the only grievance is really the presence of odd hitching: some coincide with auto-saves, while others are related to striking an enemy, switching camera view, or simply starting a conversation with an NPC. There’s no escaping it: frame-time spikes are possible even in simpler spots, but generally dungeons hold well at the 60fps mark so far.