Nostalgia in gaming: remembering the love for the Old World and Oblivion

On Oblivion, and the Old World, and the inescapble joys of nostalgia.

It is 2006. I have work in a few hours, another relatively grim shift under the overly white lights of my local supermarket: six hours of endless scanning and small talk. I dread it.

But in the meantime, I have another world to escape to. I turn to my trusty 360 - which has not (nor, thankfully, will it ever) succumbed to the red-ring of death, putting on the game that lives, perpetually, in its CD drive.

I fall into Cyrodil. Into Oblivion.

On the desk up in my room, a half-painted High Elf army awaits my attention. They're going through their third paint job, by now, moving from green-and-white through red-and-white to the eventual turquoise and navy I will settle on. Their base rims are the neatest goblin green I can manage, their robes and metals and skin as neat as I could achieve as a frantic, never-fully-focused teenager. But they, above various over dalliances among the armies of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k to date, are my first true love and I adore them, nonetheless.

Upon my desk, the Old World awaits me.

It is 2025. I finish a day of work from my desk at home, put a full-stop to my last piece of corporate copy (sharp, concise, yet conversational) and close up my battered grey work laptop. I draw out my own, sleeker, black machine from its place on my desk, and escape into another world.

I fall once more into Cyrodil. Into Oblivion.

On the desk besides my computer, waiting patiently for my attention, 20 High Elf White Lions stand proudly in ranks upon their squared bases. Their colour scheme is, as of yet, unknown, though I feel that original green theme calling to me as an ode to my very first elven army, begun over two decades ago.

And their bases rims will be green, of course. Of this, there is no doubt.

Upon my desk, once again, the Old World awaits me.

The worlds forgotten

In the intervening decades, I forgot the Old World. I forgot Oblivion. I found new things to fall into: football, pop culture, the allure of drinking and dancing and girls in pubs and bars. This was not, always, the wisest choice, but I felt that I had to be someone who liked those things. Some part of me definitely was. But there was another aspect of myself that

Though in truth, that is a lie; for though I did not play, or collect, or paint, I was always aware. The soundtrack to the Elder Scrolls has been the backdrop to many, many long days in the office in the time since, and I often wondered what became of that old world, and the one that rose from its ashes, before I finally returned to it - as many did, I think - during the pandemic.

"The soundtrack to the Elder Scrolls has been the backdrop to many, many long days in the office, and I often wondered what became of that old world, and the one that rose from its ashes."

The months after the unheralded arrival of the reborn Elder Scrolls IV have passed for me in a blissful summer, both literally, here on the outskirts of London, and figuratively: warm and mellow, like the halcyon, half-remembered days of my childhood. So to has the first year of The Old World passed in a similarly hazy progress. I held off, at first, uncertain about the state of the game's return. Could it capture the magic of the game that was my passion as a teenager? Could I make time for it, amongst my pressing need to compete, to win, at 40k?

Returning to both feels like a natural homecoming.

Imperfection as a virtue

Both Oblivion and the Old World represent a return to a less complicated time, less defined by online debate, by being or playing something in "the optimum way". You can find guides online on how to play both "the correct way", of course; that's a given for any hobby in 2025. But unlike some other games - 40k, your Call of Duties - it doesn't feel like the be-all and end-all of discussion. There is a willingness to play the game as you like, without the worry of doing it wrong.

There is also a wonderful imperfectness to both games. A willingness to hold on to the character of both games, the much-loved, slightly silly naffness that is their unintended yet much-loved hallmark.

Yes, the Elder Scrolls Oblivion in 2025 looks magical, a subtle upgrade on the look of Cyrodil, its vistas finally rendered in HD as crisply as they always were in my imagination as a teenager. Yet the towns and hills and valleys of Cyrodil feel the same as they did in my youth. The gameplay is tighter, but still familiar to me despite the distance of decades - more flailing with a sword, rather than performing deft strikes. The voices - still stilted, still spouting regularly nonsense dialogues with other characters around them - are as welcoming as they are faintly ridiculous.*

The Old World seems the same to me, in a way. It is a rules-set I know like a second skin, perfected from hours of practice on dining room tables and at our after-school club. Yes, there is more to it in this iteration, more nuance, smoother interactions, yet it feels right. New models have been introduced, and they are wonderful, and likely to continue to arrive given recent announcements. But I find there is a great comfort in seeing simpler, slightly diminutive, less-refined models standing together, rank-on-rank. To be regarded as a whole, gleaming across a billiard-smooth table of fake grass, rather than as an individual work of art, scrutinised under a microscope.

"I find there is a great comfort in seeing simpler, less refined models standing rank on rank, gleaming across a billiard-smooth table of fake grass."

Yes, better games exist. Elden Ring will destroy Oblivion in almost every metric, from gameplay to storytelling to graphics. Age of Sigmar moves faster, is more competitive. Its models are true works of art, absurd and yet graceful, leaping out of their plastic form with a true essence of life.

I find that I care little about this.

Not that this is a criticism of either of those games, by comparison. Rather, it is to say that they will never, for me, invoke the same reaction as the two in question: a deep-in-your-soul, burgeoning warmth, like sipping good beer in comfort after a day well spent.

Is that fair? Of course not. Nothing is. What we choose to love doesn't need to make sense to anyone but ourselves, after all. And yet it is certainly one of the major strengths - and selling points - that has made both Oblivion and the Old World a success, decades after their original heyday.

Conclusions

Is relying on the endless regurgitation of franchises and series which should, by all accounts, be long retired to entice audiences a great idea? Is it fair to say that nostalgia-driven content is likely a sorry indictment of our own, increasingly algorithmically circular, endlessly self-referencing world of 2025?

Perhaps.

In the end, this article doesn't wish to be drawn on such a lofty topic. That's due for conversation, I think, for another day. Rather, it is a love letter to a time and a place, and a welcome distraction from it all, as it was 19 years ago.

Playing Oblivion and building the Old World in 2025 fills me with an inescapable joy, a deep-seated familiarity for the lands of Cyrodil and square bases that feels as natural now as it did in my teenage years.

In some small way, it feels like coming home.

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Until next time,

Alex

*"Have you heard of the High Elves?!" would seem an appropriate reference right here.