Oblivion Remaster Makes The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Nintendo Look Terrible

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered stealth released this week after a couple of months of rumors and leaks. And it’s one of the biggest releases of the year, despite being just a remaster of a 2006 game. That said, Bethesda could have easily gotten away with calling the new release a remake as it looks far more like a remake than a simple remaster, at least visually. Other aspects of the game still adorn that lovable 2000s jank.

Visually, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered can pass as a modern game. Meanwhile, there are gameplay and quality-of-life improvements, even if they don’t completely modernize the gameplay. In the process of this, the whole game was moved to a whole new engine. For all this, plus all of the DLC and expansion content — which is plentiful and meaty — those interested only need to fork over $50. There is even a little bit of new content.

In comparison, the Nintendo Switch 2 port of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is getting trivial improvements in comparison, yet it is about to cost $70, $10 more than it cost at launch in 2017. Only Nintendo could charge more for the port of a seven year old game than it charged for said game when it was brand new. And what many forget is that while The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ended up being a Nintendo Switch launch game, it was originally going to be, and was developed as, a Wii U game. As you will know, it ended up being a cross-gen release. So, Nintendo is charging $10 more seven years later for a barebones port of a Wii U game. And it’s not even including the DLC content. Rather, it is selling that separately on Nintendo Switch 2 for an extra $20.

Consequently, a meme that touches on these points has been going viral on social media, and in particular, X. Those familiar with Nintendo will not be surprised by any of this though. Nintendo is infamously stingy and not exactly known for being consumer friendly. That said, the recent release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered shows how bad they’ve become in this regard.

Unfortunately, Nintendo rarely lowers the prices of its games, so The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is going to cost roughly $70 for the foreseeable future. Worse than this, it’s probably going to sell very well at this price point, which is how Nintendo continues to get away with its increasingly anti-consumer behavior.