The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Oblivion is a fantasy-based role-playing adventure game and an example of open-ended or sandbox gameplay. The main quest may be delayed or completely ignored as the player explores the expansive game world, following side quests, interacting with NPCs, and developing a character according to their taste. The player is free to go anywhere inside the land of Cyrodiil at any time while playing the game, and even after completing the main quest storyline the game never ends, allowing the player to build their character in whatever way they want, with no restrictions on skills or equipment. The game contains many enemies for the player to fight, including monsters and animals. Many enemies, quests, and treasures are "leveled", or become increasingly difficult, as the player gains levels. The player, however, has the option of adjusting the difficulty level.

The fast-travel system found in Arena and Daggerfall, but left out of Morrowind, returned in Oblivion. In Oblivion, if a player visits a location, it appears as an icon on their map. The icon may then be clicked to visit that location, with time elapsing in the interim. Oblivion also introduced ridable horses while removing Morrowind's transportation options, such as Mages' Guild teleporters, silt striders and teleporting spells. The game also removed all levitation spells and items, as the cities in Oblivion are separate cells from the rest of the world and thus must be entered into, and exited from, the town gate to avoid glitches. Unlike those of Morrowind, Oblivion's non-player characters may enter and exit areas at will, and will do so quite often, following the Radiant AI's commands.

One major focus during Oblivion's development was correcting Morrowind's imbalance between stealth, combat and magic skill sets. The skills system is similar to Morrowind's, though the number of skills is decreased, with the medium armor and unarmored skill removed altogether, and the short blade and long blade skills condensed into a single blade skill. The game also introduced "mastery levels," which give skill-specific bonuses when the player reaches a certain level in that skill. The combat system was also revamped, with the addition of "power attacks", generally given by mastery levels, and the removal of the separate styles of melee attacks present in Morrowind. Ranged attacks were also changed, so that the determination of a hit is based solely on whether the arrow struck the target in-game, rather than the character's skill level. Spears, throwing weapons, and crossbows were removed as well, while staffs no longer counted as weapons, but are only used for casting spells. The choice came from a desire to focus all development efforts in ranged weapons on bows specifically, to "get the feel of those as close to perfect as possible", as perfect as the Havok physics engine allowed the team to do. Morrowind's passive Block skill became an active feature in Oblivion, activated by a button press. When, in the new system, an enemy is successfully blocked, they now recoil, offering an opening for attack.

System Vorraussetzungen