Summary
A highly realistic, “lore-accurate” rendering of the Imperial City fromThe Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivionhas impressed the fan community by conveying the city’s incredible sense of scale and size. Thanks to technical limitations present in 2006 as well as game design concerns, theOblivionImperial City is rendered in-game at a much more condensed scale than would be practical for the capital city of a continent-spanning empire.
Though players ofOblivionwill visit every corner of the Imperial Province of Cyrodiil as they adventure through the game, the game does not render the territory at a realistic scale. After all, a game where players had to travel for dozens or hundreds of miles on foot would be difficult to render, and likely be pretty boring, to boot. Thus, eventhe biggest open world game mapsplay loose with distances and sizes, emphasizing a fun player experience over absolute realism. The same goes for the Imperial City inOblivion, which, despite being called the largest city in Tamriel, is home to no more than several dozen characters in a space smaller than some real-life malls.
That’s a situation artist L. Torres set out to fix in a video rendering the Imperial City at a more realistic scale using Unreal Engine 5. Using “sixteen times the detail” of the original game, L. Torres created a concept render of the city and its multiple districts with building and space sizes extrapolated out to a size more consistent with a major urban metropolis of the ancient world. The result is a jaw-dropping vision of theImperial City fromOblivionandOblivion Remastered, one that, despite being massively expanded, still looks familiar thanks to its distinctive circular layout and notable structures like the huge White Gold Tower rising from the center.
Artistic Render of Oblivion Imperial City Shows the Capital at Realistic Scale
Since most games rarely render spaces at their true size due to technical and design considerations, L. Torres looked to historical urban centers and ancient imperial capitals like Rome and Tenochtitlan. They also took inspiration from Bethesda’s own work, using concept art fromOblivionImperial City questsand events to align the render with the vision the developers had before having to practically implement it in the game.
It should be emphasized that L. Torres' videos are not mods of the existing game or playable spaces, but cinematic concepts, with the Imperial City render being just one of many set in the worlds of theElder Scrollsfranchise. In fact, rather thanOblivion, L. Torres' most common game subject isSkyrim, which features a number of unique spaces and several cities spread across the titular Tamrielic province. One video createsa lore-accurate version of Winterhold inSkyrim, while the most recent video renders the entire province at realistic scale. Videos like L. Torres' are a testament both to fans' creativity and the evocative nature of Bethesda’s open worlds, presenting a vision that players can imagine as a real place.
