Skyblivion mod shows off remastered environments and quests
Kvatch me outside.
We're still a long way from the release of Elder Scrolls 6 - a game that remains as mysterious as ever - so if you're looking for another Elder Scrolls project with no release date to get excited about, I have just the thing.
Skyblivion, a mod project that's been in development since 2012, aims to remake The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion using Skyrim's engine - and while there's still no release date for the mod, the latest update video shows significant progress. Focused on the mod's remastered environments and quests, it's a lovely version of Cyrodiil reimagined with a mixture of Skyrim and custom-made assets.
According to mod team TESRenewal, most of the mod's exterior environments are already on their "first pass", with the team now looking to add polish and additional details to the outside world. The team is working on a whopping 2663 interiors, and is currently in the process of reworking all the caves, mines and dungeons from Oblivion. While Oblivion often reused its dungeon designs, the Skyblivion mod team is making them more unique: designing them based on NPC and book descriptions found in the original game. Plenty of Oblivion assets have been given a redesign, but the mod team seems to be looking for even more 3D artists to help with all this fancy furniture.
The video also provides a look at the updated UI, and explains how quests will work in the mod. This is the first time quests have been introduced into the Skyblivion build, as they were previously too unstable to be added. The modders explained that a custom tool had been used to convert many of the quests from Oblivion to Skyrim, thus speeding up the process and allowing for hundreds of bugs to be fixed at once, but manual work is still required to finish off the job. Once finished, you can expect a mixture of fetch quests and scripted events - should everything go smoothly.
"Despite the massive scope of this project, we are finally seeing the end of the road, but there is still work to be done," the Skyblivion team said. "Thank you all for your support and sharing our work. It means the world to us."
While plenty of mod projects spend years in development only to never see the light of day, it seems this one has a pretty decent chance of making it to completion (despite its seemingly enormous scope). And it can be done: just take a look at Fallout New Vegas: The Frontier, a seven-year mod project that came out just last week. As for Skyblivion, you can keep an eye on progress through the mod's official website and Twitter.