Summary

  • Digital Foundry has revealed that Oblivion Remastered's performance degrades over time, leading to frame rate drops.
  • Cycling through saves on a long playthrough introduces bugs, such as graphical issues and the camera drifting upwards while on horseback.
  • Digital Foundry suggests the issue could be a memory leak, as frequently switching between saves can also cause your game to crash.

Bethesda has made some truly buggy games in the past, getting away with them most of the time besides true disasters like Fallout 76. A bit of jank is a Bethesda staple at this point, and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is just as janky as the original game and most other Bethesda titles.

A bit of jank in Oblivion is what gives it its charm, but it turns out there's a much more sinister problem lying under the surface, and one that Bethesda should probably fix sooner rather than later. First revealed by tech YouTube channel Digital Foundry, it appears as though the performance of Oblivion Remastered will significantly "degrade" based on how long you've been playing.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered Performance "Degrades" Based On Play Time

In a new video breaking down Oblivion Remastered's performance on consoles, they showcase how different the game's performance can be based on a fresh bootup and a "charged" playthrough. They show that you'll get a significantly higher frame rate on a completely fresh boot of the game, compared to when you've been playing for longer than 15 minutes, and that traveling between areas and cycling between save states can make matters worse.

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Even more bizarrely, cycling through saves on a "charged" playthrough appears to introduce bugs, such as the camera drifting too high when you're riding on horseback. Resetting the game entirely fixes the issue, so Digital Foundry surmises that the cause of this could be a memory leak.

Supporting this theory is the frequency at which the game can crash too. Digital Foundry explains that they ran tests by running "the exact same sequence of save points in a row", only to find that Oblivion Remastered, running on both the PS5 and PS5 Pro, crashes at the same point, while a similar occurrence happens on Xbox too. Resetting the game and then loading up the problem save causes no issues whatsoever.

That means, the longer you spend in Oblivion Remastered exploring and flicking between saves, the higher the likelihood your game will crash. Coupled with the overall performance drops and bugs that can occur, it may be better to make sure you don't play too much Oblivion in one sitting. Hopefully, Bethesda is working on fixing the issue, because this is one problem that isn't all that charming.

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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

Action RPG Open-World Adventure Systems 19 8.5/10 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 82/100 Critics Rec: 86% Released April 22, 2025 ESRB Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Violence Developer(s) Virtuos, Bethesda Publisher(s) Bethesda Engine Unreal Engine 5
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