The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is now 20 years old. Oh, God. As a gamer that thrived during the Xbox 360 era, after growing up with the Original Xbox, Bethesda’s then cutting-edge RPG was a benchmark for what video games could be. After the dour grey skies of Morrowind’s Vvardenfell, Bethesda went full high-fantasy with the rolling green hills of Cyrodil.

While Bethesda’s 2006 RPG may be far from the height of video game technology right now, it’s hard to explain just how revolutionary the game felt at the moment. Yes, Oblivion is a largely confused game—it’s main quest isn’t great, it’s world levelling system is bizarre, and some of its systems offer less freedom than its predecessor.

Nevertheless, there’s a feeling of magic that courses throughout the entirety of Oblivion in a way that doesn’t in Elder Scrolls games both before and after. Even as the game turns 20, Bethesda’s weird middle child of its modern fantasy RPGs is considerably more fantastical than its siblings.

While Skyrim focuses on its Norse-like setting and aesthetic and Morrowind explores with the cryptically alien, Oblivion takes the more generic forms of fantasy and distils them into one singular experience. It’s classic Sword and Sorcery, it’s unashamedly Arthurian with high-walled castles and fantastical, although its use of dragons is far more reigned in than its sequel.

Even when Oblivion released, it almost felt like a game out of time. It’s phenomenally rendered world with dense foliage and modern materials was representing an era of fantasy that had largely passed by. Whereas most fantasy media post Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings aimed for realism and grit, Bethesda’s offering felt prideful in its representation of the very foundations of the genre. To this day, no other RPG has ever felt like Oblivion, and not even the upcoming fan-remake of the game likely will.

Part of this is because The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is unique bizarre in a way that only a video game could actually be. At its very core, the experience is mystifyingly abnormal due to the way in which Bethesda’s first stab at Radiant AI bores its way through everything you do in the game. Every interaction with every NPC is powered by this system that deals with NPC interactions and behaviour by essentially generating quests for character’s day-to-day lives, and in Oblivion it’s fundamentally kooky.

In an interview I did with designer Bruce Nesmith, he explained that “the quirkiness of Radiant AI in Oblivion is what makes it noticeable”. The technology is present in every Bethesda game, even Starfield, but it’s “early glitchiness in Oblivion” is everywhere. In Oblivion, NPCs will run into a room, talk to someone, start a fight, leave, come back, and start talking again. Characters will do peculiar things at every turn, so much so that the world of Oblivion exists as it is in a bubble of technical quirk.

In 2006, this technology was the heart of Oblivion, and it still is. Your adventure through Cyrodil is frequently outlandish because the game is, at its heart, foundationally eccentric in the best possible way. It helps that Oblivion launched in an era where baffling bugs were not only acceptable, but sought out. If NPCs stared at you intently like the citizens of Starfield’s New Atlantis, that would’ve been a selling point 20 years ago.

I still love The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, even if it is the most unbalanced entry in Bethesda’s modern trilogy. The game has a vibe like no other, one that relies heavily on its oddball cast of NPCs (most of whom share a voice), and its still fun to explore its world in both its original and shiny remastered form.

While we have no idea what The Elder Scrolls 6 will be when it eventually releases just before the universe implodes, it certainly seems like Bethesda is looking more at that classic high fantasy feel again. Of course, we only have a single eight-year-old reveal image to go on (still), but maybe The Elder Scrolls 6 will be the type of fantasy RPG Oblivion was designed to be, instead of the Twin Peaks Black Lodge version it ended up becoming.