There's no denying that The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered's premade difficulty settings feel a bit flawed. While the original Oblivion featured a slider that could incrementally adjust damage dealt and taken, Oblivion Remastered streamlined things to a few bespoke increments. If these were well-tuned, that might be an improvement, but the average player is unlikely to fall in love with any of the options.

Oblivion Remastered's standard difficulty, Adept, doesn't tend to provide much of a challenge. Even without optimizing your build or sticking to the best equipment, you're unlikely to die in most situations, and you might find yourself sleepwalking through theoretically threatening areas. Bumping it up a notch to Expert, however, can quickly turn things into a slog. A setting in between the two seems like it would be perfect, but despite my initial resistance to the lack of challenge on Adept, I've ultimately found that it's the perfect springboard for my preferred style of play.

Embracing Limitations Makes Oblivion Remastered Great

Approaching Cyrodiil Like A Commoner

If there's one thing that Oblivion Remastered does especially well, it's making the playable Hero of Kvatch feel like just one part of a living world. In classic Bethesda RPG fashion, NPCs have their own routines and behaviors, but Oblivion gets more mileage out of the concept than subsequent Bethesda games have. Skyrim's emphasis on the Dragonborn has awkward side effects, like the absurd ease of rising through faction ranks. Fallout 4's settlements turn the Sole Survivor into less of a lone adventurer and more of a real estate magnate. Starfield abandons NPC schedules entirely, leading to a flatter world.

By itself, this doesn't necessarily add anything to the game's basic challenges, as the Hero of Kvatch is still capable of running circles around most inhabitants of Cyrodiil. Whether pinging around the map through fast travel or stacking spell effects, you can trivialize most obstacles that Oblivion Remastered presents. This can be fun in its own right, but for me, the most rewarding way to play Oblivion Remastered is to keep the Hero of Kvatch grounded.

Minimizing or completely abandoning fast travel usually leads to a more rewarding sense of discovery.

This approach can mean a lot of things, and I don't think there's any single set of rules that will make the game fun for everyone. In my quest to approach Oblivion Remastered as an unassuming inhabitant of its world, I've sworn off fast travel entirely, and I know that some would consider that particular sacrifice a non-starter. Personally, though, I've found throughout countless games that minimizing or completely abandoning fast travel usually leads to a more rewarding sense of discovery, and Oblivion Remastered makes that payoff particularly potent.

Fast travel itself doesn't have all that much to do with difficulty, but extending that approach down the line starts to. I'm not dogmatic about getting 7 hours of sleep in every Oblivion Remastered day or eating three square in-game meals, but I do try to act in a way that at least vaguely mimics life. I favor sleeping to significant time skips, I walk more than dash, and I accepted my fate when my first horse died rather than reloading a save. None of these decisions ratchet up the moment-to-moment fun, but I find the overall experience more interesting.

Oblivion Remastered Is Fully Of Sticky Situations

More Challenges Than Just Combat

While the majority of my time in Oblivion Remastered is still a breeze, accepting and embracing bad situations can lead to memorably tense moments. I don't go overboard on my core supplies, and it can be a lot of fun when this occasionally leads to consequences. Getting stuck deep in a dungeon with broken armor or running out of lockpicks without the ability to fast travel and grab some more imbues the game with a scrappy survivalism that makes even minor threats feel like they have the vague potential to be deadly.

What really sealed the deal for me was becoming a vampire, an affliction that's much more impactful if you ignore the game's most powerful tools. The boost that vampirism provides to stats and spells is great, but taking damage in daylight is a huge caveat if you stick to sleeping in beds rather than just skipping the days away. While you can easily manage the worst side effects by feeding on NPCs, I'm sticking to roleplaying a largely heroic character, so I avoid feeding on anyone that I'd consider innocent.

When my condition is at its worst, I have to plan my expeditions with some level of care, as getting caught out during the day would kill me. I usually lack the motivation to enter most of Oblivion Remastered's repetitive dungeons, but when the sun is poisonous, they can become refuges, making me more likely to take them on. I've now amassed a library of soul gems to cure my condition, but I won't hand them over to the NPC that can help until I travel back to that area, and I'm enjoying the change of pace in the meantime.

There's No Right Way To Play Oblivion Remastered

Optimizing Builds Is Just As Valid

With external factors like these in play, the lack of combat difficulty has ceased to feel particularly underwhelming. I wouldn't restart my playthrough if I happened to die, but I'm treating death as something to seriously avoid, and certain enemies can deal enough damage to keep that possibility on the table. While dumping all of my levels into key stats or using only the best equipment would render even that irrelevant, I'm happy to keep my attention on the world of the game itself and spend less time in menus thinking about numbers and abilities.

There's nothing wrong with playing Oblivion Remastered in completely the opposite way, but I think leaning heavily into optimization could make the jump to Expert feel fun anyway. For anyone in between these extremes, I'm still rooting for Oblivion Remastered to patch in more difficulty options, and I can't see how there would be any harm in adding something that bridges the gap between Adept and Expert. I'll be sticking to Adept, though, and if it does start to bore me again at any point, I already have plenty of silly ideas for how I could make things harder.