Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit—it’s 2026, and the Starfield modding scene just got a whole lot more nostalgic. You remember that wild promise from a couple of years ago, right? Some ambitious soul claimed they were gonna cram Morrowind, Oblivion, AND Skyrim into Bethesda’s space epic, only to cancel the whole shebang three days later. Classic overpromise-underdeliver shenanigans. But guess what? Another madlad actually went and did part of it. Kind of. Let me spill the space-tea.
So here’s the deal: a modder—let’s call them the Sheogorath of the Creation Kit—has painstakingly recreated the iconic starting dungeon from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion inside Starfield. Not just a vague Reddit \u201cI’m gonna do it\u201d post, mind you. This person actually delivered a chunk you can download and explore right now. And when I say painstaking, I mean it. They used Blender and PAINT.net (ah, the classics!) to remake the original textures from scratch over 22 hours, building that grimy prison cell brick by digital brick. It even comes with the prisoner clothes. I can already hear the distant whisper: “You… I’ve seen you…”
Now, hold your horses. That 22 hours? It covered only a fraction of the full dungeon. Let’s do some quick math that’ll make your brain hurt: if a sliver of a level takes nearly a day of work, recreating the whole game would be a task on par with terraforming Mars with a spoon. For perspective, an entire team has been remaking Oblivion in Skyrim’s engine—the legendary Skyblivion project—for over a decade, and it still isn’t finished as of 2026. So don’t go expecting to play through the entire Oblivion campaign on Neon anytime soon. BUT, here’s the spicy update: the mad genius behind this Starfield project actually planned to finish that first dungeon before Skyblivion dropped, and as of this year, they’ve taken a huge leap. The Imperial Sewers, from that rusty cell up to the point where you crawl out into the sunlight, are now fully playable in Starfield. Yes, you can get those sweet sewer rat vibes while jetpacking around in zero-G. Oh, and rumor has it they’ve even started dabbling on that first area you see after you step out of the sewers—you know, the lush green hills with the Ayleid ruin right across the water. Imagine that on a moon. Poetic.
Now, if you’re hankering to dial up the Oblivion flavor even more while waiting for this dungeon to get a sequel, the modding community has you covered with some delightful silliness. You can overhaul certain sound effects—swapping your ship’s UI bleeps for the old-school fantasy inventory clicks, for example. Or, and this is my absolute favorite, you can replace the UC Police with The Imperial Guards. That’s right: stop right there, Starborn scum! Nobody breaks the law on my watch! Then there’s the main menu swap, because who doesn’t want to hear that majestic orchestral swell and see the Imperial emblem while booting up their space adventure? It’s the little things, really.
Sure, the Starfield modding scene isn’t as bustling as Skyrim’s (seriously, Todd Howard’s 2011 baby still pumps out mods like there’s no tomorrow), so the options are a bit lean. But seeing this hyper-ambitious “Oblivion-in-Starfield” mod take off, even piece by piece, gives me hope that someday we’ll be riding horses on Titan. That’s the beauty of this community—someone, somewhere, will always look at a sci-fi playground and think, “You know what this needs? A medieval prison break.”
Frankly, I’d be over the moon if this project just manages to plop Kvatch on a cratered lunar landscape. Can you imagine it? Standing in the ruins of a fantastical city while a gas giant looms overhead. That would be chef’s kiss levels of bonkers. Until then, I’ll be in my ship, wearing prisoner rags, blasting the Oblivion soundtrack through the comms, and waiting for that dungeon door to finally open on a whole new galaxy of Tamrielic nonsense. Keep at it, you glorious modding nutjobs.