The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion launched on PlayStation 3 in 2007 as one of the first truly sprawling open worlds on the console, and for a lot of its owners it was their very first contact with the series. The player starts as a prisoner in the imperial dungeons, witnesses the assassination of Emperor Uriel Septim, and is tasked with finding his lost heir, while gates to the hellish dimension of Oblivion begin opening across Cyrodiil. Before reaching the main storyline, though, players usually spend dozens of hours somewhere else entirely.

The world can be explored completely freely, the skill system grows through use, so the character improves at whatever they actually do, and enemies scale to the player's level. Besides the main story, the game offers extensive guild questlines, with the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild in particular ranking among the best things Bethesda has ever written. Spells can be custom-built from learned effects, as can potions crafted from gathered ingredients. Closing the gates requires passing through fiery fortresses and pulling out a sigil stone, a mechanic the game unfortunately repeats a bit more often than would be healthy.

Technically, in 2007 this was an impressive showcase of what PS3 could do, with long views across the landscape and dense vegetation, though today the game shows its age mainly in the characters' faces and in loading pauses. Jeremy Soule's music, by contrast, is timeless, working with calm string passages that lend traveling across the land an almost meditative calm. At the time, Oblivion was among the best-reviewed RPGs ever and helped shape what open worlds would look like for the next decade. A defining feature was also the much-discussed conversation system with its affection minigame, and the ever-present spoken dialogue, which, though it sounded similar across many mouths, filled the world with voices. It's precisely these small imperfections that today form part of the charm players associate with Oblivion, a bridge between the hardcore Morrowind and the more accessible Skyrim.