Oblivion Remastered is undeniably the game of the moment right now, although the excellent Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is getting a lot of well-deserved attention too. Bethesda and Xbox both took to social media to share the remaster’s latest success milestone: four million players just three days after launch.
“We are so grateful to the over 4 million of you that have already ventured into Cyrodiil with Oblivion Remastered,” reads a post from Bethesda that was shared to Twitter and Bluesky. “Thank you!”
Xbox responded with a virtual handshake and congratulations referencing the Elder Scrolls’ series much memed-about cheese wheels: “That’s a lot of cheese wheels in pockets. Huge congrats.”
That’s a lot of cheese wheels in pockets. Huge congrats 💚April 25, 2025
It’s worth meditating for a second on just how successful this remaster has been from pretty much every available metric, although it’s also worth noting that its massive impact has been to the detriment to some other developers caught off guard by it being shadow dropped.
Oblivion Remastered has seen near universal acclaim from critics and players since its launch on April 22, it’s dominating the Steam charts, and now we know it’s selling like cheese-flavored hotcakes (gross?) in general.
This wasn’t inevitable. We’ve seen botched remakes, remasters, and ports of beloved games enough times to know Oblivion: Remastered was never a guaranteed win for Xbox and Bethesda. But as it turns out, meticulously rebuilding an old game for years, adding meaningful quality of life improvements without messing with the core structure of the game, and releasing it in a respectable state on all platforms is a pretty foolproof formula for success. Who woulda thunk it?
Well played, Todd: You can see Skyrim, or at least its tallest mountain, from the edge of Oblivion Remastered.