Elder Scrolls: 5 Things To Thank Oblivion For (And 5 That Sucked)

Oblivion introduced a new system in its game, dubbed "Radiant AI". The idea was that NPCs would live their lives as normal people. They had times to eat, sleep, work and even time off.

It was a great idea as Morrowind's NPCs would often stand in the same place their whole lives, and shops would be open all night as people wouldn’t go to bed.

However, it didn’t really work out this way.

There are so many examples in Oblivion of NPCs acting strangely. The most famous of these problems is the horribly disjointed conversations that people would have, it would seem like they were having two completely separate conversations, often hilarious but it does tend to ruin the immersion.

Other examples included thieves being killed for stealing in front of guards or even NPC’s just straight up disappearing, it could sometimes be a mess.

Then why is Radiant AI both a good and a bad thing for the game? Radiant Ai was quite the ambitious thing to try. It was new and innovative. Sometimes it worked quite well. An NPC may go to visit a friend that they have in another city, or a knight may go raid caves looking for adventure. When the system did work, it was great.

While it may be comical to look back at how Radiant AI worked In Oblivion. It was one of the first games to try such a feature. Many games would take this idea and improve on it. If it wasn’t for the attempt of it in Oblivion, it may not have worked in Skyrim.