Oblivion is the newest modern classic to get the remaster treatment, with Oblivion Remastered shadow dropping on 22nd April, 2025, after months of speculation, leaks, and Elder Scrolls fan prayer circles.
A massive visual upgrade to Bethesda’s 2006 RPG classic, Oblivion Remastered still offers all of our favourite questlines and features. So to start your journey across Cyrodiil on the right foot, we’ve explained some handy Oblivion tips and tricks below. We’ve also listed all of our Oblivion guides, so you can find them in one place.
Please note that some of the linked guides contain spoilers.
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Oblivion guide list: All of our Oblivion guides
Below you’ll find all of our Oblivion guides so far. Oblivion newcomers, please note that some of the guides listed below include spoilers.
Character builds:
Guilds:
Locations:
Explainers:
Other:
Oblivion tips and tricks
Whether you’re a new or returning player, here are our Oblivion tips and tricks to help you during your adventures across Cyrodiil:
- You can only change your Race, Birthsign, and Class at the end of the tutorial – Before you leave the sewers area at the beginning of the game, you get the option to alter your build. This is the only time you can do so in the game, so make sure it’s suited to your chosen playstyle, or you might regret it later!
- You need to sleep to level up – This explainer is very easily missed, but is an essential part of the game. Find a bed that doesn’t belong to anybody, or score yourself a house or room to stay at. Which brings us to…
- Get a free room and storage at Aleswell – You’ll want a place to rest and store items early on in your journey, and the small, free Inn room in Aleswell (just north of the Imperial City, along the Red Ring Road) is a great place to do both. You’ll need to successfully complete the ‘Zero Visibility’ side quest picked up in the town to get the room. When you do, you can return here whenever you like to rest for free, and store items in the chest of drawers by the bed, without worrying about the items disappearing. You can also store your stolen goods here until you find someone to sell them to.
- Find a horse – You can buy horses at any Stable, get a free one from a Stable if you have the ‘Horse Armor’ DLC, and you get another one for free from Prior Maborel in an early main story quest.
- Don’t get too hung up on the main quest – Although we do recommend completing a few of the early main quests as soon as you can for a free horse and helpful gear (and to combat level-scaling issues), Oblivion is at its best when you go exploring! Joining guilds, clearing dungeons, finding side quests, and hunting down Daedric Artifacts are just some of the fun activities you can do outside of the main storyline.
- Ask citizens about rumours – This is a great way to point you towards some interesting side quests, or notable areas nearby. It can sometimes also be the only way you can start, or continue, certain quests.
- Join the Thieves Guild – If you like stealing your way across Cyrodiil, you’re going to need to find a Fence to buy your stolen goods. One of the early perks of joining the Thieves Guild is access to plenty of Fences, so it’s advisable to start the Thieves Guild questline early, even if you don’t plan on finishing it until later.
- Cure Vampirism ASAP if you don’t want to be stuck with it – Vampirism (AKA the Porphyric Hemophilia disease) is one of the most infamous parts of Oblivion. It can be a boon for more experienced players who like balancing feeding and sun damage issues with huge boosts to their Attributes, Skills, and special abilities. However, it’s a real hassle to manage for most people, and can often make just playing the game moment-to-moment a real chore due to almost constant sun damage, fast travel restrictions, and losing access to some NPCs. You can cure Vampirism when it progresses past Porphyric Hemophilia, but it can take a while unless you have access to the Font of Renewal as part of the ‘Vile Lair’ DLC, so it’s generally best to avoid Vampirism completely during a first playthrough.
- Cure diseases – Diseases have negative effects on stats like your Fatigue, which can make combat more difficult than it needs to be. You can pray at a Chapel, invest in the ‘Cure Disease’ Restoration spell, drink a potion with the ‘Cure Disease’ property, or eat a Madrake Root or Shepherd’s Pie to cure your diseases.
- You level-up Skills by doing activities linked to them – One of the most famous examples of this is levelling-up your Acrobatics Skill by constantly jumping everywhere. You also level-up Lockpicking by picking locks, Restoration by spamming the ‘Heal Minor Wounds’ spell as often as possible, Blocking by blocking hits, and so on. This simplicity means you can up certain Skills very easily early on in the game. Thanks to the odd levelling-up intricacies of Oblivion, however, we recommend focusing on levelling up your chosen combat Skills first, or else you might find enemies are unnecessarily tough when your character reaches Level 10.
- Find a way to make easy Gold – Combining the duplication skills of the Enchanted Chest with Vampire Dust is a great way to make Gold. But crafting and selling potions is a good early-game way to get money instead, as you don’t get the Enchanted Chest until the end of The Mages Guild questline.
- Daedric gear is overpowered – If you want some of the best (and coolest) gear in Oblivion, then we highly recommend hunting down Daedric Armor, weapons, and Artifacts when you can. Some pieces are tougher to track down than others, but the reward for your hard work is almost always worth it!
- If you don’t like lockpicking, get the Skeleton Key – You get an unbreakable Skeleton Key lockpick for completing the ‘Nocturnal’ side quest, which is one of the Daedric quests. As the Skeleton Key is unbreakable, as long as you have an ordinary lockpick in your inventory, you can continuously use the ‘Auto’ button to eventually force any lock open.
Best of luck in Oblivion!
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