Bethesda has seen quite a bit of success in the way of porting games over to the Nintendo Switch, from The Elder Scrolls series to DOOM Eternal more recently. Despite that, however, there hasn’t been any news regarding the possibility of porting other titles over to the console, namely older games such as Oblivion and Morrowind. Given it seems as though these would be easy to transition to a new platform, why hasn’t Bethesda made any plans to do so?
Skyrim saw a Nintendo Switch rerelease in November 2017, which was impressively early given the console made its debut only months earlier in March. The Elder Scrolls: Blades followed in 2020 alongside a few other Bethesda series. Since then the studio has seemingly slowed down with porting other games onto the Switch. This comes as something of a disappointment to Switch users and Elder Scrolls fans alike, many of whom were hoping for a more mobile version of big-name RPGs like Morrowind and Oblivion.
Both Morrowind and Oblivion have been somewhat overlooked by Bethesda in general following the release of Skyrim, which has been re-released across various consoles since it initially came out in 2012. To get more specific, Skyrim has been released 15 times across 10 different systems in the last several years, with the most recent being Skyrim Anniversary Edition in November of 2021. In contrast, Oblivion is only available on around three different platforms and hasn’t seen a standalone rerelease since the 2009 Game of the Year edition. Although fan projects such as Skyblivion are putting work into keeping the game alive, prospects seem slightly slimmer when it comes to a Switch port. However, while Bethesda has offered no official statement on the matter, there are a few reasons why that may be the case.
Will Morrowind & Oblivion Ever Come To The Switch?
One factor to consider is Microsoft’s 2021 buyout of Bethesda. The studio’s next upcoming RPG, Starfield, is already confirmed to be an Xbox exclusive upon its release, and while Bethesda has indicated that other new titles would be decided on a case by case basis, it is all but confirmed that The Elder Scrolls 6 will release exclusively on Xbox and PC. While this obviously doesn’t impact previously-released Elder Scrolls games, such as Oblivion (which is already available on the PlayStation 3), it does arguably indicate that porting games over to other consoles isn’t Bethesda’s top priority at the moment. Furthermore, more recent Switch ports from Bethesda have been faced with relative difficulty. Fans waited through months of silence before finally seeing a release date for DOOM Eternal’s Switch version, for instance.
Another potential explanation is simply the fact that Bethesda’s focus is directed towards other projects at the moment, and teams aren’t focusing on preparing older games like Morrowind and Oblivion for a release on Nintendo Switch. Although the Switch could almost certainly handle the smaller requirements of these games, especially compared to a more recent release like Skyrim, it still takes time, money, and labor to move the game to a new console entirely. Bethesda has made it clear over the last couple of years that the studio is fully dedicated to working on Starfield, which is set to release in late 2022. After that, it’s more likely that focus will be shifted towards The Elder Scrolls 6, which despite being announced in 2018, is still relatively early in its development cycle. The recent development of Skyrim Anniversary Edition, which has added survival mode and other new features, also likely took priority.
Of course, none of this means that a Switch version of Oblivion and Morrowind is entirely off of the table. According to Nintendo Life, Bethesda’s vice president of PR and marketing indicated that the studio may have “more surprises” in store for Nintendo fans in the future. However, that was in 2019, and since then there’s been little word on what Switch users can expect from Bethesda in the coming years. Dedicated players of The Elder Scrolls series will simply have to wait for further news.
Source: Nintendo Life
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