The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has been one of the most popular releases of the year so far, but tech experts warn that it's full of major performance issues, including a bug that can wipe your save if you're not careful.
The wait for the next Elder Scrolls game is certainly up there with the pain that Grand Theft Auto fans have had to experience ahead of GTA 6, as Skyrim - the last mainline entry in the series - came out nearly 14 years ago.
While Bethesda has incessantly released the series' fifth entry multiple times since its release, its predecessor, Oblivion, was largely forgotten. This left players with no way to experience it on newer consoles if they didn’t have a PC.
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That's why there was so much excitement surrounding the open secret of an Oblivion remake, as it would give countless Elder Scrolls fans the chance to dive into Cyrodiil for the first time - and dive in they did!
Oblivion not only achieved impressive review scores from audiences and critics alike, but it's already racked up four million players in the weeks following its release. Unfortunately, many have quickly realized that it's not the best when considering the overall performance and stability, leading to some major warnings from key tech experts.
As reported by IGN, everyone's favorite performance investigators over at Digital Foundry have indicated that the Oblivion remaster has a myriad of issues, including one that can prevent you from loading one of your saved files.
"All [platforms] struggle with traversal hitches while roaming the open world," explained Digital Foundry's Thomas Morgan, adding that "there's major sub-60fps frame-rates, where I've also discovered that performance slowly degrades with more playing time."
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That'll likely make for a suboptimal playing experience, especially if you're used to the smooth and consistent frame rates of many of the biggest games releasing.
What poses the biggest threat to players, though, is the aforementioned bug that causes crashes when loading a save, as that can completely lock you out of your playthrough if you're unlucky enough.
"Software freezes are the icing on the cake, with all PlayStation and Xbox platforms crashing to the system menu on loading a save one too many times," Morgan illustrates, and that's many a gamer's worst nightmare.
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Many have recounted their experience with this particular bug on Reddit, as one comment explains: "I played for 12 hours the first two days and it worked perfectly. I had to take a break for two weeks for work travel, and now the game won't load any save nor will it let me start a new game.
“It just gets stuck at the first loading screen. I have tried every single fix online but nothing has worked. It's pretty disappointing."
Another has claimed that it's a carryover from a bug that existed in the original game, recalling an experience where "after playing for a while (almost 100% completion), I'd often have to start over, as the save file corrupted."
Regardless of its origins, this particular bug has led many to demand an emergency patch that will hopefully solve the issue, but as with all things surrounding game development, the solution is often far more complicated to find than you might think.