The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered joined a list of other games using Unreal Engine 5, which were noted for optimization issues. Bethesda Game Studios released the nearly twenty-year-old game which are said to have combined elements of its original engine with UE5. In addition the game features Lumen ray tracing effects and between all three of these, the game, well, is noted as having some issues. However, the game has also received praise from players and media outlets alike for its improved visuals. Meanwhile the developers have received critisim for not fixing many bugs found in the original game and have not updated it since launching last April.
Per DSOG:
“And time for our No.1. The worst-optimized PC game of 2025 is Oblivion Remastered. Virtuos released the game and then basically abandoned it. They haven’t released a single update since April. As such, the game still runs exactly the same as it did at launch. Oblivion Remastered still has some of the worst stutters we’ve ever seen in a PC game. In fact, it has both shader-compilation stutters and traversal stutters. And then we have lots of other bugs and visual glitches. This is really disappointing because the visual upgrade is amazing. The game looks great, but the huge technical problems ruin the experience. And sadly, it seems like the devs will never fix them. It’s a real shame, because Oblivion deserves much better.”
Unreal Engine 5, and its previous generations have often been noted for stuttering issues experienced during game play. There are many, many, and it needs to be said again, many reasons this can happen but one of the more common culprits is shader compilation. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is among a number of games which does this when the game is first launched but unfortunately the combination of old and new engines working together to provide modern visuals doesn’t help things. Turning off Lumen can help but then you lose out on a major upgrade point intended with the remaster.
For those not afraid of some NVIDIA RTX 50 series silicon magic sauce, users can enable DLSS and frame gen for a smoother, but still not perfect, gameplay experience. Brute force with fast memory and storage can also help when used with a powerfull processor as well but ultimately, it would be nice if the devs tuned things just a bit instead.
On a side note UE5 has continued to be upgraded with versions 5.6 and 5.7, featuring many new improvements and upgrades.