The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This page details bugs of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

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Oblivion is often seen as the true start of Bethesda releasing games that are filled with bugs, assuming that the community will fix them anyway. It comes as no surprise then that, even after the last patch, a lot of problems still remain in the game. There are even some issues that get introduced by future patches and DLC. These bugs range from minor annoyance, to minor immersion break, all the way up to complete game-breaking problems.

Voice Acting#

Given that the game has tens of thousands of lines of dialogue both in text and voice, it's understandable that mistakes or inconsistencies could pop up here and there.

Some slip-ups are more excusable than others, though...

Mistakes#

Some minor (and major) problems seen in the game's dialogue.

Affects	Topic	Text	Note
Dul gro-Shug	GREETING	Dul gro-Shug. I could show you a thing or two about Security... for a small consideration.	Dul implies that he trains Security, while he actually trains Light Armor.
Varnado	GREETING	I'm Varnado. I handle the Heavy Armor at 'The Best Defense'. I'm also an Advanced Trainer in Heavy Armor, so I know what I'm talking about.	Varnado mispronounces his name as "Varnardo".
Elragail	GREETING	My name is Elragail. I look after Thamriel. He's a little strange. 'Touched by the Gods', they say.	Despite an attached note reading "REC - changed "He's' to 'She's' -- our sex change error", this line was neither re-recorded, nor was the subtitle corrected. Thamriel appears as a female in the final game.
City-Swimmer	GREETING	Does anyone see City-Swimmer? Is he gliding beneath the silver water? Is he creeping 'round a corner, hugging a wall, silent as a shadow in the dark?	Despite being recorded by a female voice actress, City-Swimmer misgenders herself as male in the first line of her greeting.

Outtakes#

Some of the most famous bugs involve lines of dialogue that aren't cut correctly, leaving in outtakes by the voice actors. Not only does this break immersion, but it also breaks the lipsync animation of the affected NPC. People often cite these when talking about Oblivion's voice acting issues, although they are very much out of the hands of the voice actors.

Affects	Topic	Text	Note
Quill-Weave	GREETING	What do you want, you... you... rat?	Voice actress Elisabeth Noone hesitates after the first "you", before restarting her sentence. This dialogue plays as a greeting if the player reports her during the quest "A Rat Problem".
Breton Males	Rumors	Lady Umbranox has hired a new Captain of the guard.	Voice actor Ralph Cosham restarts his sentence midway through. This dialogue can play as a possible rumor for any Breton males in Anvil, after completion of the Thieves Guild quest "Taking Care of Lex".
Elven Females	Rumors	I heard that thieves broke into the Arcane University, the Imperial Legion Compound, and the Temple, all on the same night!	Possibly the most infamous one of them all, voice actress Linda Kenyon can be heard saying "Wait a minute, let me do that one again." after her first take. This dialogue can play as a possible rumor for any elven females in the Imperial City, after completion of the Thieves Guild quest "Misdirection".
Elven Females	Rumors	One of the castle staff was murdered trying to stop a thief.	Voice actress Linda Kenyon restarts halfway through the first "murdered". This dialogue can play for any elevn female, after completion of the Thieves Guild quest "Ahdarji's Heirloom" if you get a Blood Price.
Imperial Males	Conversation	I won't take up much of your time. But I felt you should know, I've had a breakthrough!	Voice actor Wes Johnson restarts during the first "should". This line can be used by any male Imperial Mage Scholar found at the Arcane University as part of the random conversation system there.
Imperial Males	Recharge	All your charging needs... for a very small charge.	Voice actor Wes Johnson puts a wrong emphasis on the word "needs" the first time around, then apparently misreads "charge" as "change" before clearing his throat and reading the line correctly. This line can potentially be used by any Imperial males offering Recharge services, which in the base game is just Chorrol's Contumeliorus Florius.
Redguard Males	Rumors	Spriggans. "Nature's guardians" my foot! Mean things. They'll curse you, or they might call a bear to tear you apart.	Voice actor Michael Mack stumbles at the last part of the sentence and restarts. This dialogue can play as a possible rumor for any Redguard male in the game, at any time.

Swapped Audio Files#

There is one instance in the game of the wrong voice files being used for two lines. The following generic Wilderness rumors for Imperial females are swapped around, meaning that the subtitles and lipsync mismatch the line. Presumably these lines were simply mislabeled, as their IDs are very similar to each other.

Affects	Topic	Text	File
Imperial Females	Rumors	I saw a wraith once. It threw a curse on me I'll never forget.
Imperial Females	Rumors	I ran across a ghost once. Seemed to suck the energy right out of me.

Splicing Mistake#

Another case of an issue seeming to happen only once. During the Fighters Guild quest "Amelion's Debt", you are sent to speak to Biene Amelion in order to retrieve items for her so she can pay off her father's outstanding gambling debts. When asked the following question, she replies with the line as seen below. However, in the audio, the first "I" quickly repeats itself. This seems like the line was spliced from two takes, but the "I" wasn't correctly cut from one, leading to this result.

Affects	Topic	Text	File
Biene Amelion	Where are the sword and armor?	Not far, in my family's ancestral tomb. Here, I can mark it on your map. Please, return them to me, so I can pay off my father's debts.

Others#

FormID or Reference Bug#

A famous glitch that was present in all versions of the game at their launch dates, but patched only when its effects were accelerated and exacerbated by the Shivering Isles DLC. The game creates unique items (requiring a FormID) regularly, but the initial scripting did not recycle them with gameplay as intended. Normally this was a difficult limit to reach, but early PC mods and Shivering Isles then introduced some scripts that took up vast numbers of FormIDs by mistake, causing affected games to delete dropped items after saving and loading, then later corrupting saved data, even to the point of resetting the player character back to their placeholder name, "Bendu Olo".

This glitch was patched in late April 2007, roughly a month after Shivering Isles was released. Only a few videos from that time show the glitch in action. More info can be found here.

Broken Candles#

(Only happens on patches after v1.2.xxx that do not have Shivering Isles installed.)

This glitch concerns the location of the mesh for the candlestick CandlestickFloor01DarkFake: Instead of looking at the general Clutter path for a texture to replace the missing mesh, it would instead show up as a yellow diamond and a black exclamation mark. Other than test areas only accessible with console commands, the only ones that can be found in the base game are Eugal Belette's basement in Chorrol, Fort Hastrel, Fort Roebeck, and in Fort Redman.

This was patched on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 versions by requiring Shivering Isles to be installed.

Mistyped Weapons#

A testing weapon found in one of the test cells (and available for console players via the Frostcrag Spire glitch), the Mace of Doom, is classified as a bladed weapon.

Frostcrag Spire Glitch#

There's a way in the Xbox 360 version to access the test cell TestBrumaHouseMid, which was reused as the cell for the Spire.

You can also do this on PC by just saving in the living area of the tower and then when you next launch the game just unselect Frostcrag Spire from the active plug-ins. When you relaunch into the game, you'll be prompted that there's missing content; ignore it and load into the game anyway. You're now in one of the test areas and can now explore and exploit one of the houses for unlimited fame points and Sigil Stones.

Floating Paintbrushes#

As the name implies, paintbrushes will float in the air when you attempt to drop them. If you've managed to collect enough of them, you can use them to scale walls and go out of bounds, leading to geography changes that are unseen when either going out of towns and exploring the outside world, or scaling the walls into towns.

Horse / Seating Glitch#

Trying to mount a horse while seated - or vice versa - will cause an immediate game crash in all versions. Because horses normally are only ridable in outdoor cells, this is only possible in a few locations, such as outside certain wilderness inns.

Land Tears#

Oblivion (and its expansions) contain 103 land tears - locations where adjacent cells that make up the game world's landmasses do not meet properly, and leave open holes. Most are out of bounds or small enough they can only be seen from certain angles. One of the larger and more obvious tears is in the water slightly east of the southeast third of Bravil.