Oblivion Remastered, the modernized and improved version of The Elder Scrolls 4, shadowdropped last year, with rumors of its launch only circulating around 24 hours before it was available for purchase. But despite selling 1.1 million copies on PS5, games industry analyst and head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics Rhys Elliot revealed only half of those players made it past the 15-hour mark (thanks FRVR).
“Oblivion Remastered has sold 1.1M copies on PS5, proving the pull of Bethesda’s legacy catalogue on PlayStation hardware,” reads Elliot’s LinkedIn post. “It launched on all platforms simultaneously. Around half of Oblivion Remastered players on PS5 played for less than 15 hours, showing that most people got their nostalgia fix before meaningfully progressing.”
As The Gamer points out, this approximately matches up to the global Steam achievement stats too. Only 55.9% of players have closed an Oblivion Gate, which, aside from completing the tutorial where you escape from the sewers, is the first achievement tied to main quest progress.
Of course, Oblivion Remastered is a huge, sprawling RPG, so there’s plenty to find and do off the beaten track, but it’s still an indication that many players got their nostalgic fix and then jumped ship before playing through the entire game again, especially since only 7.5% of Steam players completed the main quest. Or could it perhaps be because, unlike Bethesda’s other major games right now — Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Starfield — Oblivion Remastered doesn’t have mod support.
There have been plenty of rumors lately about potential Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters coming soon, to coincide with the second season of the show on Amazon Prime, so if true, it’ll be interesting to see whether players drop off at a similar point or stick with the game for longer.
