Justin Davis/Screenshot

The Elder Scrolls games are some of the best open-world, role-playing games you’ll find.

I’ve recently revisited “Elder Scrolls: Oblivion” following a remaster of the 2006 classic and it’s still as robust and fun as I remember. The game is set in the fictional province of Cyrodiil, a province of the continent of Tamriel.

The game’s plot centers around the Oblivion Crisis, in which a Daedric Prince named Mehrunes Dagon tried to conquer Tamriel through portals called Oblivion Gates, from which hordes of enemies called Deadra emerged and caused widespread chaos.

The crisis was triggered following the assassination of the Emperor of Tamriel and all of his heirs, which severed the magical link between Tamriel and Oblivion that allowed Mehrunes Dagon’s invasion.

While the game’s main story is great, the real draw is the ability to do nearly anything you want in the game.

Do you want to be a battlemage who can vanquish their enemies with either powerful magic spells or a razor-sharp sword? You can do that.

Do you want to be a stealthy archer who picks enemies off at a distance with the aid of an invisibility spell? You can do that too.

The options are endless, as are the quests. In fact, you can play “Elder Scrolls: Oblivion” for dozens of hours without progressing through the main story arc at all.

Maybe that’s the draw for me. I don’t need to save the entire kingdom right away.

Instead, I can become a master thief, arena champion, Archmage of the Mage’s Guild or Master of the Fighter’s Guild before I close a single Oblivion Gate.

I’ll get to saving the kingdom. I just need to do this one side quest first.

— Justin Davis, reporter, Blue Mountain Eagle