Elder Scrolls Oblivion: 10 Easter Eggs You Might Have Missed The First Time Through – TheGamer

Elder Scrolls Oblivion has a lot to the game, so some things are bound to be missed on a first playthrough...

The Elder Scrolls VI is currently in development and fans of Bethesda's high-fantasy AAA open-world franchise can't wait to get their hands on the next entry in the beloved series. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim took the already popular series and cracked into the mainstream gaming audience.

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The fourth game in the series, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, sometimes gets lost in the fray but had quite a lot of good to offer players. Let's now take a look at the 10 best easter eggs and references most players likely missed when they played Oblivion for the first time.

An easy way developers and writers end up implementing easter eggs is through the naming and look of items. In an open-world game like Oblivion, there are so many items in the world it makes it much easier to throw in a reference or two in there. There's a pair of shoes called the Blue Suede Shoes, which most would point to as a reference to the famous musician Elvis Presley. Presley covered the song and it was originally written and performed by an American musician by the name of Carl Perkins.

Oblivion and the rest of the games in the Elder Scrolls series do a good job of providing the player with plenty of content they can actively interact with or avoid easily if they just want to focus on the game's overall narrative.

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Plenty of books and journals have neat stories, that can be missed or avoided. In the quest called "May the Best Thief Win" a diary that can be stolen features a story that's very similar in structure to that of the famous and beloved musical known as Little Shop of Horrors.

When people hear that a character has a name that's an anagram of Frodo Baggins in Oblivion it sounds kind of lame. Once players realize that Oford Gabings also used similar items in the story written in the Macabre Manifest, the easter egg quickly becomes a lot more interesting. It is said that Gabings had a travel cloak with a leaf fastener, an enchanted shortsword, a gold ring with an inscription, and a leather travel journal. All of these are obvious parallels to the iconic possessions of a hobbit named Frodo Baggins.

When reading the title for this entry readers might have assumed this was about the Disney character, but that's not the case. Well, that's not entirely the case. In Anvil players who explore the lake area can find a statue that bears a striking resemblance to The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, Denmark. The statue is based on the 1837 fairy tale of the same name, the exact story that inspired the classic Disney film which captured the hearts and attention of children for decades after it was originally released in movie theaters.

Most people think of easter eggs as references to other video games, movies, or television shows, but it can be much broader than that. Oblivion does a decent job of also including references to historical figures from real-world history. Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French Revolution and the focus of numerous films. Players who venture into the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary can find a character named Antoinette Marie, an obvious play on the name of the famous French queen.

When creators establish vampires in a fantasy world, it's expected that Dracula will make an experience in some capacity. In Oblivion there's a Count in Skingrad named Janus Hassildor who looks very close to the mental image of Dracula everyone has.

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The castle in Skingrad also looks like Bran Castle, a structure in Romania referred to as Dracula's Castle. There's also a character mentioned in the game by the name of Aluc Cardius, a reference to Alucard from the Castlevania franchise, and the son of Dracula.

The Lord of the Rings was likely a big influence for Bethesda when they were crafting the Elder Scrolls series. This means that any correlation between the two makes absolute sense. That's why when it was revealed that Sean Bean would be voicing Martin Septim in Oblivion, fans lost their minds that the live-action Boromir was attached to video games. In the hidden area of Oblivion known as ToddTest, there is a character named Boromir, which makes the connection to Sean Bean that much more serendipitous.

It's one thing to name an item or design it in a way to be an easily identifiable easter egg, but it's another to have it function exactly how it does in its original appearance. Players can find a glass shield in Oblivion that is called the Mirror Shield. Not only is this named after a shield from The Legend of Zelda, it functions in the same way. It can reflect magic, something that's quite useful in a world filled with witches, wizards, and magic users of all shapes, sizes, and moral alignments.

Oblivion is the fourth game in the Elder Scrolls series and followed in the footsteps of Morrowind which put the series on the map in terms of broad appeal. Bethesda understood the game's significance and paid homage to it several times in Oblivion. Many residents in Cheydinhal say they fled Morrowind due to the demise of the Tribunal. On top of that, there's a book called Myth or Menace? that references the final missions of the Thieves Guild that players experienced when they played Morrowind.

Redwall is a famous series of books written by the late Brian Jacques. The series functions as an anthology of stories featuring anthropomorphic animals in a high fantasy setting. It served as a strong point of inspiration for generations of readers and fans of fantasy who went on to become writers and directors. Players can come across a Khajiit named Tsarinna in the mission titled The Siren's Deception, which is a nod to the main villain of the Redwall book called Mossflower, who was a talking cat.

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Jerrad Wyche is a writer, designer, and producer hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico. His favorite video games include Mass Effect 2, Inside, Pokmon Soul Silver, Spelunky, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. He hosts his own weekly video game podcast at Controlled Interests and is a dedicated writer for TheGamer.

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Elder Scrolls Oblivion: 10 Easter Eggs You Might Have Missed The First Time Through - TheGamer

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