Summary
- Morrowind laid the groundwork for Oblivion's success, revolutionizing expansive world-building.
- Thief: The Dark Project set the standard for first-person stealth gameplay, influencing Oblivion's mechanics.
- Baldur's Gate showcased clear character progression, inspiring Oblivion's design for attribute-focused skills.
It's no surprise that once the new Oblivion remake dropped, the gaming world stopped everything they were doing to pick up one of the greatest RPGs Bethesda has ever made. For many people, Oblivion is a formative RPG experience, but in actuality, it's just one more step in a clear line of succession from some brilliant RPGs that came before, inspiring everything gamers love about Oblivion.
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Whether it's games that revolutionized how first-person RPGs worked, or the best fantasy writing ever made, there are plenty of precedents for Oblivion's success that were clear inspirations for Bethesda. This list is ranked both by how influential the games were on Oblivion and by the quality of the games themselves.
Honorable Non-RPG Mention - Thief: The Dark Project
Thief: The Dark Project
- Released
- November 30, 1998
WHERE TO PLAY
Stealth gameplay in a first-person setting is a notorious design challenge, as it's sometimes hard to get a true sense of surroundings in a limited perspective compared to a floating third-person camera that can provide a full 360-degree view for the player to make better choices.
However, Thief: The Dark Project revolutionised first-person stealth by showing best practices that were adopted by a lot of games moving forward, like Oblivion. By slowing the pace down, having a variety of indicators that relay enemy awareness, and a focus on the detail of stealth such as materials and floors' effect on movement noise, Thief showed that first-person stealth not only works, but has the potential to be thrilling, a lesson that Oblivion took to heart and still influences stealth games to this day.
7 Baldur’s Gate
D&D In Digital Form
Baldur's Gate
- Released
- December 21, 1998
WHERE TO PLAY
At this point, every modern-day RPG fan has probably played Baldur's Gate 3, the long-awaited sequel to the cult BioWare series that took the CRPG format and had one task. Bring the world of D&D to the digital space, introduce beginners to the world, or die trying.
Luckily for the gaming world, Baldur's Gate was an unmitigated success, becoming a formative game for many and a gateway drug to the world of D&D. It also has clear influences in how Oblivion designs its character progression with a clear focus on central attributes, then ancillary skills, communicated simply enough for anyone to understand, but retaining a lot of depth for RPG fans who love to min-max.
6 Deus Ex
The King Of Immersive Sims
Deus Ex
- Released
- June 23, 2000
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Ion Storm
- Publisher(s)
- Eidos Interactive
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 2, PC
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, FPS, Stealth
Though the immersive sim genre already existed before the release of Deus Ex in 2000, Deus Ex would become the genre's defining game, and for many, it remains unsurpassed to this day, both within the franchise and in gaming as a whole. Taking the role of Denton, players are let loose into open spaces to achieve their objective the way they see fit based on their skills and attributes.
The unparalleled level of freedom Deus Ex offered was a massive inspiration for games like Oblivion. In fact, it's hard to imagine the more open-ended Dark Brotherhood missions without games like Deus Ex to pave the way.
5 System Shock 2
SHODAN Shushes The Competition
System Shock 2
- Released
- August 11, 1999
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- m
- Developer(s)
- Irrational Games, Looking Glass Technologies, NightDive Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Electronic Arts, NightDive Studios
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, FPS
While Deus Ex usually receives all the glory as the immersive sim game, System Shock 2 actually predates it by almost a year and has cemented its place in gaming history as one of the best immersive sim games ever made. Taking a more constrained approach by placing players in levels within a space station, System Shock 2 is all about systemic design, where the path to the goal is obscured, and the player must rely on emergent systems to succeed.
In Oblivion, this is seen not just in the Dark Brotherhood questline that encourages creative murder methods, but also in the brilliant spell-crafting and potion-brewing system, where any conceivable effect in the game can be combined with any other, resulting in some truly wild spells that can entirely shift how builds work. It's all in the player's hands to use the systems given to make that leap, and the new upcoming remaster proves its undying appeal.
4 Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines
The Greatest Vampire RPG Ever Made
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
- Released
- November 16, 2004
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- Troika Games
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
Vampire: The Masquerade as a franchise has had a bit of a rough ride, with delayed sequels, commercial and critical underperformance, leading to a fanbase that is rabid for a return to the glory days of great RPG fundamentals like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodline s.
Taking on the role of a newly converted vampire, players are tasked with solving and navigating the complex politics of the vampire world, all while fending off supernatural monsters and big, distinct personalities. The writing is very strong, and it shows how pulp genres like vampire horror (or in the case of Oblivion, high fantasy) can still be taken seriously in the writing while indulging the silly side of things.
3 Planescape: Torment
Existential Philosophy Lessons
Planescape: Torment
- Released
- December 12, 1999
WHERE TO PLAY
RPGs have always been known for their incredible writing and storytelling chops, likely because players who engage with them are willing to take their time and experience a story on a truly epic scale. Determining any game as being the "best" written RPG is tough, but if any game has a claim to the throne, it's Planescape: Torment.
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In this CRPG, clearly inspired by Baldur's Gate, players embody a character known as The Nameless One as they navigate the strange, peripheral planes of the D&D cosmology to discover their own identity. It's an existentialist masterpiece that shows how capable video games are of delivering emotionally powerful stories, and the quality of the writing no doubt had a big impact on the aspirations of Oblivion's writers.
2 Fallout 2
The Chosen One
Fallout 2
- Released
- October 29, 1998
WHERE TO PLAY
The "best" Fallout game is always a heated topic within the fanbase, particularly between the first two games in the franchise. However, Fallout 2 usually comes out on top as the fan favorite, inspiring the likes of Fallout: New Vegas afterwards with its delicate high-wire act of balancing goofy humor with genuine emotional storytelling.
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Fallout 2 was also an incredibly popular game, and showed game designers that players were more than ready to have RPGs that weren't just about making numbers go up and grabbing loot, but that they could tell genuinely brilliant stories for a wide audience. Oblivion does this in spades, and considering Bethesda's relationship with the Fallout series after Oblivion, it's hard not to imagine the franchise had an impact long before the release of Fallout 3.
1 The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind
Vvardenfell Calling
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- Released
- May 1, 2002
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Blood, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Bethesda Softworks
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox (Original)
- Genre(s)
- RPG
This might be a boring choice for the top of the list, but there's little doubt that Morrowind had the biggest effect on every part of Oblivion, from snout to tail. Morrowind was a revolutionary game, making an earnest attempt to render the sprawling worlds of the first two Elder Scrolls games but in far more detail, amplifying immersion to such a degree that a player really feels like they're in the world.
Morrowind was a massive success, and it proved to be the foundational formula for the entirety of Bethesda Studios moving forward. For many, Oblivion perfected the formula, balancing complexity, open-world hijinks, and memorable immersive world-building. It's just hard to see how it ever could have existed without Morrowind, the game (with the help of some mods) that still brings players back to this day.
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