Downloadable content is business as usual these days. If a triple-A video game is released, chances are it’s going to have a Deluxe Edition housing additional digital goodies or a virtual currency that players can pick up to help streamline the experience. We rebelled against the very existence of DLC once upon a time, but now we don’t bat an eyelid at its presence.
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion from Bethesda Game Studios was one of the first triple-A games to introduce cosmetic downloadable content for players to purchase in the form of its infamous Horse Armour. First released on April 3, 2006, and taking up a grand total of 6.3 megabytes of space, Oblivion’s horse armour was made available for 200 Microsoft Points, which equates to roughly $1.50 when translated to real money. We don’t care about such content these days, but when horse armour first rolled around, it felt like Bethesda was opening Pandora’s Box.
Downloadable Content Has Changed So Much Since Oblivion First Came Around
Back in 2006, the world of online gaming was still in its relative infancy, and when you paid $60 for a new video game you expected it to be a complete experience, not for new pieces of content to be cut out of the product and sold back to you at a surplus. It was a toxic way for developers to do business and, as predicted, we weren’t happy about it. Selling us new maps or entire expansions for MMORPGs was fine and dandy, but a piece of armour? Selling something like this for just a few dollars felt like a slippery slope towards a far worse fate. And it was: you only need to look at something like Assassin’s Creed Shadows for proof.
Players were right to be fearful, because Oblivion was the beginning of a modern trend that persists to this day. There is extra money to be made from digital cosmetics and currency, and history has proven that enough people pick them up to be worthwhile. Skyrim and Fallout 4 would introduce the act of monetising mods through Creation Club that remains even today. It’s an aspect of what should be a single-player experience that makes me anxious, so to see Oblivion Remastered bring back horse armour as a tongue-in-cheek joke kinda sucks.
Horse Armour Has No Place In Oblivion Remastered
When it shadow dropped earlier this week, Oblivion Remastered also came with the option to purchase a digital deluxe edition which includes unique armour, weapons, and cosmetic decorations for your eventual steed. They all look pretty cool, and are themed after the odd cataclysm the titular gates bring in their wake. But there is no way Bethesda included horse armour without thinking about the wider ramifications of its existence. It was so criticised in 2006, and is what many came to consider the very first microtransaction.
I’m not naive enough to think that Oblivion Remastered should have launched without a digital deluxe edition of some form. If it makes a corporation more money, it’s going to be a thing.
=As part of Oblivion Remastered, however, both Bethesda and its fans are treating the idea of horse armour in this deluxe edition – which raises the standard price by $10 – as a cute joke, or an acknowledgement of its history, like its initial introduction is something to be proud of. It isn’t, and was arguably the catalyst to the greedy position that video games currently find themselves in. If the medium didn’t lean further and further into the direction of smaller purchases designed to nickel and dime players, we’d be having a different conversation. But Oblivion Remastered instead wants to capitalise on our nostalgia whilst poking fun at one of its most controversial identifiers.
Oblivion Remastered is a faithful revival of an RPG classic that reminds us both how far this genre has come and what made exploring fantastical worlds so wonderful in the first place. But in resurfacing that nostalgia, it also offers up a bitter reminder of how free from corporate nonsense triple-A experiences once were, and that modern triple-A titles are filled with loads of optional extras that only exist to boost profits and stifle artistry. Horse Armour sucks, and it always has.