The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remains beloved by fans to this very day. However, no game is ever perfect. Whether it's due to frustrating bugs or broken quests, every title has its share of problems. Furthermore, Oblivion has been showing its age now for quite some time.
How does one go about fixing these problems? Mods. And there just so happens to be thousands of them for Oblivion. In addition to fixing bugs or making the graphics look better, there also exists plenty of mods that add brand new content to the experience. Some of these examples may just be interesting enough to entice a player to reinstall this classic blast-from-the-past.
10 Oblivion Character Overhaul
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great game. Nevertheless, there's not getting around the fact that graphics-wise, it looks pretty bad by now. In particular, the NPCs look atrocious, with their dead eyes and barely moving faces.
Enter Oblivion Character Overhaul. This mod, literally, gives every character a much-needed facelift. NPCs appear less like talking potatoes and more like something a player might find in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The level of detail is nothing short of beautiful. Talking to people can once again become an enjoyable experience.
9 Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul
Once Oblivion looks better it's time to start improving the gameplay itself. Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul is a fantastic all-in-one mod that adds a plethora of new features, fixes, and content. Among other things, it helps make Cyrodiil feel more like a living, breathing world.
Some of its features include better combat AI, a crafting system, notice boards, animal taming, and new enemies. Interestingly, no game files need to be replaced when installing this mod, although the Oblivion Script Extender will still be needed. Check out the mod's readme file for a complete list of its colossal amount of features.
8 Vanilla Combat Enhanced
Don't expect a Dark Souls level of complexity when it comes to combat in an Elder Scrolls game. The combat mechanics in Oblivion weren't exactly groundbreaking when the game first released and has aged even more poorly since then.
Vanilla Combat Enhanced does exactly what its name suggests. It makes the combat more intuitive without changing it into something completely different. Oblivion will still feel like an Elder Scrolls game, but with a more challenging twist. For example, enemies are no longer gluttons for punishment, but will be smarter and often deadlier if the player isn't careful.
7 Knights Of The Nine Revelation
Certain modding teams undoubtedly possess tremendous talent. Open-world titles like Oblivion often receive modded story content. In some cases, these add-on adventures inject a startling amount of content to a game. One may even mistake a few of them for an official DLC pack.
Knights of the Nine Revelation is a perfect example. Taking its cue from the popular Knights of the Nine DLC the mod adds a massive amount of new material. It adds new items, quests, followers, fully-voiced NPCs, and much more. If some players were unwilling to lay down their Divine Crusader gear, then this is the mod for them.
6 Oblivion Uncut
The games in The Elder Scrolls series are massive. Hundreds of hours of content is packed together to form the whole experience. Inevitably, there's always bits of material that get left on the cutting room floor. Some of it may never see the light of day, but some mods manage to resurrect this lost material to its intended glory.
Oblivion, unsurprisingly, has its fair share of cut content. That's where Oblivion Uncut comes to the rescue. It restores bits and pieces of content that, for some reason or another, wasn't included in the final product. New NPCs, quests, locations, shops, and dialogue are restored thanks to this little gem of a mod.
5 Dark Brotherhood Chronicles
Dark Brotherhood Chronicles is yet another DLC-sized mod. This one adds new content for the Dark Brotherhood, one of the vanilla game's most popular guilds. For the player, their Listener's bloody rise to power doesn't end with the execution of Mathieu Bellamont. More intrigue and assassinations await...
The mod aims to give the player more choices when deciding how to complete its quests. The freedom to roleplay is given a much higher priority in this mod. It's a great piece of unique content that fans of the Dark Brotherhood will love sinking their blades into.
4 Better Dungeons
There's quite a bit of exploring in Oblivion. Dark caves and dank dungeons often serve as frequent points of interest to the player. After a few hours, veteran spelunkers will start to realize something. Most dungeons in Oblivion lack uniqueness. Maps are frequently recycled or rearranged with not a whole lot to distinguish them from each other.
Better Dungeons attempts to solve that problem. Caves and dungeons now contain little "stories" to them, much in the vein of Skyrim, that make each one more unique. Some locations even contain new treasures to find and puzzles that go with them. Definitely a must-have mod when starting a new playthrough.
3 Better Cities
It's one thing to improve Oblivion's dungeons, but what about its cities? It's important to remember that the word "city" is used rather loosely regarding Oblivion. The areas are quite small and never contain a very sizeable population. This is due, of course, to the limits of technology at the time.
Mods like Better Cities seek to improve upon those shortcomings. Make no mistake, Better Cities is a mammoth mod, ambitious in its scope. Every city in Cyrodiil is given a logical redesign in a very lore-friendly manner. Additional NPCs also populate these locations, making everything feel more alive.
2 Guild Advancement
For roleplaying purists, this is a must-have mod. It serves to add a dose of logic and realism to the vanilla guild questlines. Case in point, some players may find it jarring that a pure warrior, with very little magical knowledge, can effectively become the Arch-Mage. Guild Advancement puts a stop to that nonsense.
Actual effort is now required to be put into the requisite skills in order to advance. The mod adds a new progression system that makes the player feel like they are achieving actual progress. New quests are included to give players more opportunities to hone their skills before being promoted to the next rank.
1 Mysterious Bear's Epic Necromancy
Speaking of roleplaying, some players may enjoy living the life of a necromancer. If that's the case, however, the vanilla magic system in Oblivion leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately, Mysterious Bear's Epic Necromancy can make a roleplayer's dream a reality.
The mod adds a new skill to the game: necromancy. Improving the skill won't make the player particularly popular around Cyrodiil. Bodies can be harvested, graves can be robbed, and unholy altars can be prayed upon. Undead minions can now be summoned and commanded at will. Playing an evil sorcerer never felt so good.