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Skyblivion, the massive modding project that’s remaking The Elder Scrolls IV in Skyrim’s engine, has just shown off some fresh quest gameplay at C3 (Community Creations Con) ahead of its 2025 release.
What was intended to be about half an hour of quest gameplay turned into about 40 minutes, but hey, sometimes you just walk into a building and an NPC you’re used to being in one place has decided to cheekily sit out of the way.
As you’d expect given the Skyblivion team hit the major milestone of finishing up landscaping work on the final region of Cyrodiil they had to finish that key stage for – the Niben Basin and Valley – earlier this week, the gameplay shown off this time mainly focused on the area in and around the city of Cheydinhal.
We got quick runthroughs of two quests – the Fighters Guild one that tasks you with resolving Biene Amelion’s debt and a true classic in the form of ‘A Brush with Death’. If the latter’s name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s the one that sees you walk into dark elf Rythe Lythandas’ painted world in order to free the poor artist with the magic brush.
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In both cases, the thing that really stuck out was just how detailed and polished Skyblivion’s worldspaces and the stuff contained within them looks at this point in development. At one point, project lead Kyle ‘Rebelzize’ Rebel just did the walk into Cheydinhal I’ve done a million times in both vanilla and modded Oblivion, and it brought a smile to my face to see how well it seems the team has maintained the nostalgic soul of the thing, while filing away some of its rougher, more 2006 edges.
The painted world itself was a great example of this – playing vanilla Oblivion in 2025, it feels like a little room that might not be too special if it wasn’t able to lean into the game’s already very oil paintingy aesthetic to form something visually special. In Skyblivion, it’s a longer, more fully fleshed-out dungeon that packs a similar visual punch despite Skyrim’s more realistic art style, and ends in an environment deliberately textured to look just like unpainted canvas.
Another detail worth picking out here was the mod’s new interaction menu UI, which has been overhauled into something unique that brings a lot more Oblivion vibes to help offset the more Skyrim-style inventory, compass, and map the mod has – as you’d expect, given it’s running in TES V. Also, while battling skeleton enemies, you may suddenly realise you’ve just killed one with a tail. Why? Well, because the modders have put together unique skeletons for elves and best races, which is a step beyond even Skyrim.
There’s still no concrete release date for the mod to narrow down the general 2025 window it’s had for a little while, but the modders did reiterate in this showcase: “We are confident we can get it out this year”.
What did you think of this latest look at Skyblivion? Let us know below and make sure to check out the interview we’ve literally just done with Skyblivion project lead Rebel, especially if you want to know how the modders feel about those official Oblivion remake rumours.
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