The eternal struggle!
I'm something of a traditional soul towards most things in life, ever erring towards the tried and true and typically glancing askew at anything even resembling some 'new world contraption here to rock my norms!' I'm the old guy who shouts at windmills- you know how it is. And yet I find myself inexplicably on the other side of the fence when it comes down to the most important debate of our generation: Skyrim or Oblivion. Okay, so maybe I oversold that a little bit- but I really am surprised how heated this back and forth gets- particularly when there is only one objectively right answer- and it's Skyrim... right? But time and time again I'll hear people with opinions I typically respect drumming up their love and admiration for the mastery of Oblivion that Skyrim just couldn't match, and I have to scrub out my ears to believe it. Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls game too, so I understand nostalgia- but I live in a world where facts are facts. Don't I?
Wait, now I'm actually questioning that. Because if I really break it down and look at myself, there were certain areas in which Oblivion performed more competently than Skyrim did, weren't they? Bethesda is a company that tries to overhaul their games from entry to entry, not just get incrementally better year by year; as such sometimes they push themselves too far in one direction that doesn't pan out, and the past efforts shine all the better for the misstep. Fallout 4's over-reliance on base-building over pre-existing complex world factions being a salient example. So how does Oblivion prevail over Skyrim in any similar fashion, and could they come together to create some form of reality where the old guard title truly is the superior to Skyrim in any remote fashion whatsoever? I'm really splitting hairs here, because otherwise I'm going to be horrifically bias.
Now I've said it before, and it's low hanging fruit for certain, but Oblivion's faction system is so much more robust than Skyrim's. Whilst they are both essentially the same, a string of quests in a self-contained line themed around the faction, Oblivion really remembered how to create an environment where you actually felt like a member of a guild. You would travel around to various guild halls, get to know your fellow members, perform quests for all the different guild leaders where advancement came based on how many of these favours you performed rather than how far along in the questline you were. Yes, Oblivion's faction system did still very much inherit Morrowind's tendency to present utter trash requests as 'quests'; although Oblivion's lowest standard of quest design was still tons better than Morrowind's worst. ("Please collect this ingredient."- please never fall that far again, Bethesda Narrative designers!)
Some have gone so far as to expand upon that point and claim that the world simulation of Oblivion was superior; referring to the way that Oblivion sold the illusion of a breathing world around the player. Indeed, Oblivion featured more believable Imperial patrols that scanned the important roads at night on horseback with their little torches and a modular ambient conversation system between NPCs that could react depending on where you had reached in various questlines. (even if it did become the basis of memes for how unnatural it sounds.) But the most ambitious iteration of Oblivion's world simulation is buried, half finished, in it's code. I'm talking about the semi-functional feature known as Goblin Wars, wherein various factions of Goblins would spread autonomously across the map to mount raiding parties and overtake territory depending on the status of special goblin totem poles and non-respawning raid-leader NPCs. It is a much debated about, but genuine (half working), system that really demonstrates what Bethesda was going for when constructing the world of Oblivion.
Then, and here's a controversial take, we have the combat. Oblivion's is better. But Skyrim's looks and feels better. Skyrim's combat is essential swipe and dodge, without a dedicated dodge button; and the existence of that blasted action-locking 'kill cam' is genuinely game-breaking at higher difficulties. Oblivion's combat has a little more depth to it with unlockable skill moves at certain level thresholds, which really rewards dedicating yourself to a single marital style of an extended period beyond the relatively boring damage increases that the younger brother title presents. Skyrim also had locational damage- oh wait, no it actually doesn't! That was just a rumour which has since been debunked by actual code skimmers! Oblivion knew the onus of complexity should be on melee combat and dedicated the bare basic amount of development to realising that, even partially. Of course, neither game has great combat by any stretch of the imagination, but Oblivion's at least remains partially interesting in the late game. Skyrim's flatly does not.
It has also been said that Oblivion has superior DLC, and this really comes down to a matter of taste and opinion. Mine being that 'Knights of the Nine' was okay but I don't really care enough about it to dedicate another playthrough through it... pretty much ever again after my first. 'Shivering Isles' is a literal classic and I seriously don't begrudge anyone who thinks it's unique world, unforgettably tormented characters and ironically twisted and intricate narrative and lore is a match for anything that 'Dawnguard' or 'Dragonborn' produced. The Shivering Isles reintroduced visual complex weirdness to the Elder Scrolls after that angle was notably toned down from the heights of Morrowind. It's one of those landmark pieces of content who's blueprint you can see on at least one of each proceeding Bethesda game's DLC offerings; because everyone always chases that high of old.
Finally, it has to be said that Oblivion really did a much better job providing a varied offering of objectives in it's main mission slate. Skyrim's are pretty straight forward- go here and kill this and survive that. Oblivion added something for everyone. There was a stealthy infiltration mission of a murder cult following a cloak-and-dagger subplot, there was a giant fiery siege of an Oblivion torn town against some truly tough monsters, there was an open-choice 'collect a Daedric Artefact' quest hook that pushed you out and forced you to not just explore but dig up one of the secrets of the game world. A main quest should explore the breadth of the wider game to some degree and introduce players to everything they might expect, Skyrim just kind of thrust people into the hands of The College of Winterhold, or The Companions, or The Thieves Guild and expected them to accidentally join up whilst otherwise attempting to save the world from a murder dragon. It got the job done, I guess, but it lacked the tailor-made nuance of Oblivion's approach.
So overall, yes there are a slew of things that Oblivion did better than Skyrim ever could of... however- the world of Cyrodill is still one of the most visually bland that Bethesda has ever produced, the vast majority of it's citizens still utterly lack in all but the most basic personality traits, the speech minigame is still a largely perfunctory trainwreck, the level-scaling system is still impressively broken and Skyrim's selection of mods are, and pretty much always have been, vastly superior. In my mind, Oblivion was a product of it's time that excelled for what it was but by merit of it's age was lacking some of those evergreen properties that make Skyrim and Morrowind games you can never grow completely tired with. Maybe next year I'll give another shot at an Oblivion playthrough to desperately try and love it. Maybe that time I'll get through my first visit to the Imperial City without quitting and uninstalling.
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