I never played Oblivion, I'm early into the remake and having a blast, it feels new and exciting and still nostalgic. I don't game that much these days but I'm really into it, so Im not going to let the modern bs ruin it for me, I bit my tongue about the body type bs.
But I have to say the multitude of black NPCs is immersion breaking. I don't remember it in Skyrim so I asked chatgpt and it said they added them in for diversity bs. One or two black NPCs in the world is fine and doesn't ruin the lore/logic, but when you have tons of them it does. It makes zero sense and immediately pulls me out of the world I was just being immersed in and reminds me it's 2025 and everything is infected by this shit.
I'm going to just enjoy the game but I'm tired of blacks being inserted into fucking everything. its never Asians or Indians or something else either, the obsession with blacks in the media is insane.
I am finding the large amount of of non-white bandits and marauders refreshing for how bravery accurate it is.
Unless there's been some sizeable racebending going on in the remake, this would be par the course and a nothingburger. Original Oblivion had a sizeable number of Redguard NPCs and it takes place in Cyrodiil, the most cosmopolitan country in the empire. They only comprise of about 8% of the total NPC population of the original game (roughly even with most of the non-Imperial races) and interestingly enough,the city where they have the greatest population density is Anvil. Which makes sense lorewise. Anvil is a coastal city that's very close to Hammerfell and hence sees a lot of Redguard commerce and influence.
Yea, it really feels like OP doesn't know a lot about TES if he finds this immersion breaking. The world actually has quite a bit of history which explains clearly the how and the why for each of the races being there. This is really a text book study on how to do it properly.
It's definitely been more than 8% of the NPCs I've seen so far. Chatgpt may be full of shit, it didn't even know about the game when I first asked it. But it said they did new voice actors and shit to make more diversity in the game. It just feels like a 2025 game instead of a 2000's game in this sense. I'm still enjoying it overall
Well, I can't comment any further on the racial demographics of the remake, since I don't have it (and never will). But concerning the additional voices, the original game was indeed lacking in diversity of them by the proper definition of the world (not the corrupted version of it that we commonly see today), which is what the AI may have meant. All the beast races shared the same two voices, one for the males, one for the females. As did the Nords and Orcs. As did every freaking elf. It resulted in a lot of samey-feeling characters and mediocre acting overall. Only Wes Johnson, who voiced the Imperial males, made an effort to give a unique voice to the more major characters under his umbrella, like Lucien Lachance and Sheogorath. So trying to diversify them by replacing some of them with new voice actors should be benign. But then, I don't know who these new actors are; for all I know, they may indeed be a bunch of DEI hires.
The original game was the same, Cyrodil is supposed to be a big mix of different races. There was no political motive behind it back then, although I can understand how it might seem and feel differently under today's fatigue. For any named NPC, check what they looked like in the original; I bet it's the same.
Far too many people treat ChatGPT/AI as some omniscient resource. It's not, and it's not an authoritative source on anything. Especially for recent events that don't exist in training data yet. ChatGPT "research" is worse than citing Wikipedia.
Because the Redguard ethnicity suddenly doesn't exist?
Did you read what I said? Yes you can have one or two, that's what happened in Skyrim and its not immersion breaking or illogical. I haven't even played that long and I've come across multiple black families, black soldiers etc. It's got the diversity of a modern day American city, not a fantasy game.
Skyrim is a whole different beast from Oblivion. The empire is rather inclusive of its provinces, meaning everyone is free to come and go. That means a lot of diversity (and we can see in Skyrim where that got them).
The provinces however, are all racist as fuck. Skyrim, Valenwood, Morrowind, Black Marsh, Summerset, all of them. The two noteworthy being Morrowind and Skyrim as they both have modern(-ish) titles so it's easier to see. Morrowind will never ever get a remaster (demaster?) just because of all the slavery that Dunmer are totally fine with.
I know Redguards are in parts of Skyrim. Never played Oblivion. I’m thinking of getting the remaster, but may wait til Skyblivion comes out. Or just get both
I'm not talking one or two redgaurd that the game acknowledges is in a different country. There's a bunch of black families and soliders. It makes no sense. Same as the house of the dragon or Hogwarts legacy race swaps
And it is really fun, worth getting on game pass imo
I’ve never played so I’m not doubting you. And a bunch of black people in Cyrodill would have me scratching my head. I’m so tired of race and gender swapping. If I was in charge of a studio I’d make a rule that they must cast characters that look as described in source material.
At this point it’d be an easy way to drum up positive marketing. “We’re making all races and genders the same as the source material.” 10m sold opening day.
They’d have my support immediately
Redguards getting an intelligence penalty, bonus to blades/blunt weapons and adrenaline rush (chimpout) bonus may be one of the most secretly based things in gaming history
Race aside, did the original have 50/50 male/female bandits? I know Skyrim did but it was the first time I noticed. Even then Nexus tried to ban the mod that made guards and bandits mostly men, the only reason the mod stayed was that the guy who made it was a gay dude and that made it diverse - somehow.
It's woke garbage. I'll stick to the original
If we're excusing them for lore reasons, you could say Cyrodil is the center of the empire so all the peoples would be mixed there maybe? Whereas despite the proximity I wouldn't expect a black dude from the desert to ever go to Skyrim willingly. But we all know the real reason.
If it's supposed to be like Rome it wasn't crazy that there would be individual traders or warriors or something from all over, but it just feels like every other modern media with the diversity where it doesn't make sense. Just going to ignore it and enjoy the game