Good morning!

If your week didn’t start with Oblivion crashing mid-dialogue and you somehow not minding, it’s time to fix that. Bethesda just dropped a remaster out of nowhere and it’s glorious.

Janky? Yes. But like, nostalgically janky, the kind that makes you say “ah yes, home.”

Meanwhile, a tiny French team made what might be the actual Game of the Year with Expedition 33, and I can’t stop yelling about it. Plus: $3,600 anime statues, legal chaos, and devs slowly realizing extraction shooters are taking over everything.

In this edition, we’ve got:

• Oblivion Remastered making us feel 14 again

• Expedition 33 absolutely bodying the AAA space

• And a few gaming headlines that will make you laugh, cry, or rage-tweet

Here’s everything you need to know this week in the world of gaming.

TOP STORY

Oblivion Remastered Just Dropped Outta Nowhere… And It's Glorious(ly Janky)

Bethesda just dropped a remastered version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion out of nowhere, and gamers everywhere lost their collective minds… again.

📦 Available now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 (and yep, it’s on Game Pass), this glow-up gives 2006’s janky, lovable fantasy RPG a modern face-lift without nuking what made it so gloriously weird.

What’s New in This “Remastered” Version?

• Visuals are crisp AF thanks to Unreal Engine 5. We’re talking full 4K, 60fps, and actual shadows that don’t look like they were drawn in MS Paint.

• Combat’s been tweaked, but it’s still mostly "swipe swipe, rat dead." Don’t expect Elden Ring levels here.

• Sprinting exists now. Yes, it took 20 years.

• UI and character creation got a facelift. Still weird enough to look like Oblivion, just... shinier.

• Third-person view is now usable. Not great, not terrible. Let’s call it acceptable jank.

It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Bethesda Feature™

Look, we’ve still got:

• NPCs wigging out,

• Shadows popping in from the void,

• And framerates doing the cha-cha on anything less than a RTX 4090.

But let’s be honest: Would it even be an Elder Scrolls game if it didn’t break at least twice per hour?

Why This Remaster Matters

This isn't just for nostalgia-sick millennials who want to hear “STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM” in 4K. This is about giving a whole new generation of gamers a crack at one of the most eccentric, ambitious, and absolutely bonkers RPGs ever made.

Bethesda clearly handed this project to folks who actually love Oblivion. The Paris-based devs at Virtuos treated this like a passion project, like Hogwarts Legacy-level passion, and you can feel that magic in the world, even when the lighting explodes.

Oblivion Remastered is janky, beautiful, and absolutely worth your time. It’s not perfect… but neither was the original. It’s that perfectly imperfect Bethesda energy we all secretly missed. And honestly?

It’s nice to believe in the magic again.

Check out my video on it below 👇

LATEST NEWS

GENERAL

• JND Studios dropped their Eve and Tachy statues like Beyoncé tickets, gone in minutes and priced like rent in L.A. Bet even they were blinking at how fast $3,599 walked out the digital door. (PushSquare)

• Pocketpair’s legal defense against Nintendo is basically: "Yeah, we copied your homework—but so did half the class, and they graduated years ago!" Bold move, let’s see how it plays out. (GamesRadar)

QUICK LINKS

• Ultrakill publisher co-founder throws up hands, jokes 'Tarkov has done irreparable f*cking damage to the game industry' because even FromSoftware games are extraction shooters now.

• ‘Let me do that one again’: Oblivion Remastered still has the original’s infamous dialogue blooper.

• Bethesda has "no intention" to shut down fan-made Skyblivion mod.

• Devolver's financials show Cult of the Lamb is its best seller, earning more than $90 million with DLC a significant factor: 'Gamers are spending more time on known IPs'.

LATEST VIDEO

'Clair Obscur: Expedition 33' is a MASTERPIECE...

Look, I’ll save you the scroll. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is utterly phenomenal. No qualifiers. No “it’s good for an indie.” Just straight-up Game of the Year-level stuff, and it came from a team of 30 people in France who somehow built a better RPG than most studios with 3000 and a coffee budget from hell.

Here’s the deal:

• Stunning visuals. Unreal-level pretty. Not Unreal Engine… I mean actual Unreal.

• Not a single crash, bug, or T-posing wizard in 60+ hours. You heard me.

• Wild concept: Every year, an ethereal being paints a number on a monolith. Everyone that age? Poof. Gone. So this year, a crew of soon-to-be-expunged 33-year-olds say “nah” and set out to stop her. It’s poetic, haunting, and mad original.

• Voice acting that slaps harder than your childhood trauma. Andy Serkis (yes, Gollum himself) is in it and kills it.

• Game Pass Day One. Or $50 if you’re buying, and frankly? It’s a steal.

Even the gameplay sings. It’s turn-based, but with real-time dodging and parrying that makes boss fights feel like Sekiro with spreadsheets. The build crafting? Deep. Obsessive. Deliciously nerdy. You want your team to explode things with burn stacks, counter like anime swordsmen, or soak hits like meat shields? You can do all of it.

There’s New Game+, there are hidden areas, there’s a literal parkour mini-game buried inside it, and the whole thing just oozes passion and detail. It’s what happens when developers actually give a damn.

⚠️ One Warning: It's super spoilable. Skip the trailers, skip the forums—just play it. You’ll thank me later when you’re emotionally wrecked at 2AM thinking about paint, fate, and whether Gollum made you cry.

Want the deeper dive (and all the gushing)?

Check out the full video review below 👇

It’s worth it. So is the game. Don’t sleep on this one.

WHAT’S TRENDING?

MOST POPULAR:

The Twitch throne is still firmly held by Just Chatting, bouncing back with a 📈 2.2% increase this week. The big hitters aren’t going anywhere:

🥇 Just Chatting – 56,372,014 hours watched (📈 +2.2%)
🥈 Grand Theft Auto V – 18,277,213 hours watched (📈 +3.3%)
🥉 League of Legends – 18,250,716 hours watched (📉 -1.6%)
🎯 VALORANT – 14,224,228 hours watched (📈 +3.3%)
🎯 Counter-Strike – 12,519,011 hours watched (📉 -17.6%)

TRENDING:

These games are blowing up right now—catch the wave while it's hot:

🔥 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered – 8,563,662 hours watched (massive launch hype)
🔥 Overwatch 2 – 5,115,967 hours watched (📈 +165.4%) (Blizzard refuses to die)
🔥 Last Epoch – 4,645,808 hours watched (📈 +138.1%) (ARPG fans eating good)
🔥 ZLAN – 3,189,205 hours watched (tournament magic)
🔥 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – 1,659,009 hours watched (indie darlings rising!)