Skyrim Races Have Come a Long Way Since Oblivion: A Visual Comparison

GR - "Orcs in Oblivion were so ugly that they could have played stand-ins for Shrek. Instead of being savage brutes, the greenskins looked comical—and not in the charmingly horrifying way of Warhammer's Orks."

[Ren_]

They do look much better in Skyrim :)

[Tanir]

they are still very ugly though, they should have learned from the beauty pack mods made for oblivion. those characters looked amazing. looks like a different game actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watc... for example

Edit @ Hotskys

Um lol, obviously ugly races should be ugly, but normal humans shouldnt all look ugly and bored like they do in elderescrolls games. I love the games, but seriously, none of the characters have face expressions and are just ugly, though skyrim characters are less ugly, they are still hideous

[hotskys]

Orcs are supposed to be pretty?

[Drake117]

Sorry but not everyone likes the dumb asian style of FF games. And thats what that sh*t looks like. I love the character style in Skyrim. Its very rugged and gritty looking like it should be.

[Tanir]

thats your opinion Drake, I guess because the design is actually nice that it means its asian.

doesnt mean that skyrim characters are attractive.

Look at Witcher 2, and dragon age 2. those characters have some appeal

[Iroquois_Pliskin]

I cant wait to get my hands on Skyrim!1!

[nveenio]

I can't believe they're doing this kind of a leap on the same generation of hardware. In my opinion, this is a bigger jump than Uncharted 1 to U2. (I'm not saying the game is prettier, just the leap in fidelity within each franchise.)

[hotskys]

Really all i read from your comments is "waaaa I want anime style characters." Sorry if i disagree that characters in a medieval based game shouldn't be all glamorous. Sorry but if we're being realistic here which for a fantasy based medieval-ish rpg, they're pretty accurate. Sorry if the girls in elder scrolls games aren't running around with make-up and bikinis

Go play one of the thousands of korean mmos if that's what you're looking for, us elder scrolls fans are happy with they way things are.

[Cheydinhal]

I disagree. The face mods for oblivion are definitely an improvement over the originals, but they looked really J-rpg style, which I felt didn't fit so well in TES universe.
Like Drake117 said, the character style for skyrim fits the ruggedness of the land. Fits very well in my opinion. :)

[Pozzle]

So...you think every race should look like the same half-naked woman with wings and different colored skin?

How boring.

If you want to look at boobs, buy a Playboy. >_>

At least the Skyrim's races are unique and interesting to look at. You can tell genuine thought and effort went into designing the different races. They wanted to make the world seem realistic, not pointlessly sexy.

[Hayabusa 117]

I have to agree with everyone else here. It took me ages to customise a female character in Oblivion that didn't look awkward and eventually I gave up and went with what I had. But I ended up really liking the way she looked in the end, pasty-faced and hunched over: made her feel more real.

[Spitfire_Riggz]

Yeah it would actually put me off of using argonians khajiit and orcs they were so stupid looking.

Now they look awesome though. Definitely gave it some replay value just on characters for me

[Logan832]

I am pretty sure this is a repost.

[MajorJackHoff]

lmaoooo look at the guy in the comments section of that website raging. It's actually kind of funny in a childish sort of way. Let your inner child be exposed and you will laugh. (I just sounded like a pedophile..)

[Pintheshadows]

The Orcs and Khajiit in particular.

[kramun]

8 more days :o

[SephirothX21]

I'm already playing it :).

[Pintheshadows]

I hate you. But not really. I'm just jealous. You lucky bast*rd.

[SpunkyMrSpiffy]

I have been playing it for awhile myself on the xbox 360 and I'm really impressed with the graphics. For the FEW people whom watched the streams and that 20min leaked footage and thought the graphics looked appalling and some people even said it looks like Oblivion graphics. It's because those were low quality streams and they weren't recording in HD. All I can say is the graphics are amazing, and hell so is the game.

[ArabianKnight01]

Really!? And yet you still have time to comment on n4g? Your not doing it right! LOL Any and all resemblance of a social life should and would be gone if you were...

[SephirothX21]

Graphics are beautiful. I'll be buying the pc version next week. I'm loving it so far. Though I completed the quest at Bleak Falls Barrow and the achievement didn't unlock. I haven't witnessed any other bugs yet though. Horses are back and the addition of sprinting to the game is great. The level design is a lot better with more puzzles and more variety. Anyway, I'm off to Whiterun to join the Imperial Legion.

I'll check out MW3 tomorrow and see if its worth buying.

[SpunkyMrSpiffy]

The only thing I have a beef with is the item menu. Let me explain, when you go to apparel all you clothing items are thrown in there as a list so its tedious to find the footwear or chest-pieces ect you want to ware. Furthermore its hard to compare the stats on certain items; example would be when you look at the iron studded vest then have to scroll down 20+ items to compare to the light iron studded vest. its nothing big but the menus are a little cumbersome.

[josephps3]

I won't be able to play Oblivion after playing Skyrim.

Skyrim looks like next gen compared to Oblivion. Skyrim's graphics and environment just obliterates Oblivion. Even the freaking menu looks vastly better for crying out loud.

[Terrified]

Dude. Oblivion is 5 years old. I surely hope that Skyrim would be updated with todays graphics and be in 1080p. Everyones flipping out that a new release of a game has come out with todays graphics, who would have thought? I honestly was hoping for some PS1 graphics.

[josephps3]

@ Terrified

Hey stupid, it sounds like you're talking to someone who said they hope Skyrim has updated graphics and is better than Oblivion.

Well duh, ofcourse Skyrim has today's tech and is better than older titles. The discussion is HOW MUCH BETTER Skyrim is compared to Oblivion and how far they've come. The improvement made is so drastic that Skyrim looks next gen even though Oblivion and Skyrim are still running on the same generation consoles.

Why don't you learn to read and think before you make a statement.

[Terrified]

Hey stupid, they're saying how far they've come. That can go for almost any Gaming Company who made games back in 2006 and still make that series today. Why don't you learn to read and think before you make a statement? Once again, in a span of 5 and a half years time, almost any game back then, will look like todays game, like what Skyrim looks like, if they want supreme graphics and detail.

[kcuthbertson]

Well it definitely won't be in 1080p...

[earbus]

Dragons fail.

[NCAzrael]

Wow, thank you for that remarkable insight. With such great comments like that I can't fathom why you don't have more than one comment bubble.

[theonlylolking]

The elder scrolls series has come a long way. It once was a overrated series with many flaws, only able to survive because of moders and now it is a masterpiece.

[Captain Qwark 9]

i agree skyrim will be a masterpiece and prob the definitive elder scrolls but disagree with "overrated series with many flaws", in fact i couldnt disagree more......morrowind remains to this day, my fav game of all time without mods, i played it on xbox

[SITH]

The orcs look amazing. To me they have the biggest improvement. All races look great of course.

[shing7]

Orcs really look like Shrek in Oblivion, but they compare with Skyrim. It's a big improvement.

[Tjrocks741]

Not only do the characters look amazing, but look in the background.
Thats a great job Bethesda
Can't Wait!

[HINDERIZATION]

MUCH BETTER :D

[TheWolverine]

Do want.

[StitchJones]

PC = 1080p
360/PS3 = 720p

PC wins

[SpunkyMrSpiffy]

But my shitty PC only gets 480p; so console for me.

[DeadManMcCarthy]

What's the best human race for toughness?

[nskrishna2]

Always liked Nords (I dunno why lol) and this time it's on their home ground Skyrim..:)..:)

I loved the Freeze Palm attack..:D

[zero_cool]

The graphics could be much better in skyrim then what they've shown so far to date because consoles & pc have seen better & can handle better without taking content or performance hits easily there's still room to spare!

P.S..But then again that's what you should of expected from a lazy closed minded greedy cash cow garbing game studio like bethesda lolz!

Cheers Gamers & Happy Gaming!

[Hayabusa 117]

Once again, the Elder Scrolls games are all about the details of the world, not necessarily the scale. Allot of people just don't seem to get it. All you want is higher resolution textures and higher polygon models: there's more that goes into a game then the graphics. Skyrim doesn't look as incredible as a game like Gears or Uncharted, but compare all the stuff you can do in Skyrim to super-linear corridoor shooter with super scripted action sequences. Skyrims spends it's power on GAMEPLAY as well you know. Knowing how Oblivion plays, I'm amazed they were able to improve the graphics even to what they have in Skyrim.

[zero_cool]

No really?(Sarcasm)I want the same top notch quality i get from my exclusives on PS3 (graphics,gameplay ect..)in my third party games & skyrim is far from it!

Cheers Gamers & Happy Gaming!

[meant2live34]

I really can't take you seriously. I've twice seen you call Bethesda lazy, and I can't take you seriously because of it. Bethesda is probably one of the least lazy game companies. And as for the graphics, you have to realize that a lot of memory and production time goes into the story and the over 300 hours of gameplay. The graphics will never been quite as good as a 6-7 hour game where the game studio has years to solely work on the graphics.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Its time for me to use my wood elf once more running around bowing people down BTW I'm might be an assassin this time instead of a thief. I hope I'll be able to assassinate the bad people in the game instead of the good. Does anyone know?

[MonopolyRSV]

David Icke is a beast. Look up his video interviews with Credo Mutwa.

[zerocrossing]

That's a hell of a graphical upgrade, If the rest of the game got this much attention to detail it should be awesome.

[cesardrgn]

just a few more days away now :)