Directional Pad

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion pushed to 2006

There isn't a whole lot to say here. Both the PC and Xbox360 versions of Oblivion have been pushed to Fiscal Q2 2006 (Spring-ish). This is - of course - disappointing, but I can't say I'm not surprised. When videos were out at E3, I thought "wow, that looks pretty far along, but it doesn't really look done yet, or even ready-to-be-done-this-year".

Then, as things ramped up towards the Xbox360 launch, everything seemed to be indicating "Oh yeah! Oblivion is totally going to be there! It's going to be great!". I haven't been paying as much attention to the Xbox360 hype machine as I guess I should have, so I just chalked it up to the usual baseless release date speculation like how GameStop is currently gleefully accepting preorders on Revolution games. I usually tune all that stuff out because it only leads to disappointment, but apparently Microsoft even confirmed that it would be ready.

But they were wrong. Yesterday, Take 2 reported in a financial-update press release that Oblivion was moved to Q2 2006. Reasons given for the move all seem to filter back to Bethesda Softworks needing more time to finish the game.

Delays are one of the worst things that can happen to a game. Right up there with "outright cancellation" and "beloved franchise is raped and pillaged by EA". Delays are especially awful because unlike the other two, there's conflict. On one hand, you feel optimistic. "I'd much rather see the developers take their time to make this game amazing rather than have them rush a game to market that isn't complete." But on the other hand, we're also the most impatient bunch on the planet, so every day that passes beyond the original releasedate is excruciating.

Lets try to focus on the first part, ok? With an extra couple months, maybe Oblivion won't have game-crippling bugs in it like Morrowind did at launch. I sure did enjoy having Morrowind hard-lock my computer every time I tried to play for more than 20 minutes back when it was first released. Anyways, it's not like we don't all have enough games to play from now til spring.

Sources: Gamespot, Take2

PS: Coming soon to DPad - 3 more reviews and another thrilling installment of 'Indie Games You Should Know'.

Discuss this article on the forums.