Skyblivion, the massive mod remake of Oblivion in Skyrim‘s engine, won’t be making its previously announced 2025 release goal, the team behind it have confirmed. Instead, the mod’ll be coming out at some point in 2026, giving the team behind it extra time to overcome the final few hurdles and get it polished up.
This news comes a few months after ex-Skyblivion level and world designer Dee Keyes called the 2025 release goal the mod’s team set in 2023 “pointless and unachievable”. Keyes also accused Skyblivion project lead Kyle ‘Rebelzize’ Rebel and implementation lead Heavy Burns of rushing the project out the door and mismanaging communication within the team, subsequently sharing more of his perspective on the project in a video interview with RPS sister site Eurogamer. In a response to Keyes’ original claims, Heavy Burns asserted that “many of the statements in his post are either misrepresented or just untrue”.
That brings us to now and the above video, in which project lead Rebel announces the delay and offers some info on the mod’s current state. “Despite the game being in the best state it’s ever been, we still have some last challenges to overcome that are going to require a little bit more time,” the modder said. “This is something we have known for a while, but we did not want to announce a delay without also sharing our current plans and ambitions for the release of the project.
So, how’s it doing? Well, first of all the creation of its world map is “100% finished”, with the team having just released an interactive satellite version on their website, so you can scroll around and see what their version of Cyrodiil looks like. Most of the dungeons are done, as are most of the building interiors, though the latter’s with the exception of the Imperial City, with that being the last bit of the province which the modders need to pull together.
Their current aim’s to have it done by the end of 2025, so quests can be finalised and remaining bits of navmeshing done early in 2026. Navmeshing, for the uninitiated, is the setting up of frameworks which allow NPCs to roam around places without bumping into everything. The modders also have playtesting of mechanics planned for early next year.
“As we move closer to the release date, the goal will be to spend as much time as possible polishing, balancing, and fixing our game for you guys to finally play,” Rebel added. “There’s no real deadline for this, as I expect we will be working on this until the day of release.” Once the mod is out of the door, the lead also mentioned plans to add in some features which haven’t made it into the current version, including spellcrafting, dynamic dungeons, and grave robbing. Underwater combat’s had to be cut for now, but the modders also hope to potentially add that in down the line.
Hopefully the extra time makes delivering Skyblivion a bit more comfortable for the group, given Keyes’ accusations. I’ll still be interested in giving it a go whenever it emerges from the Imperial sewers, given the in-depth approach the modders look to have taken in reimagining The Elder Scrolls 4 with a lot more tweaks and additions than Bethesda’s Oblivion Remastered.