Earlier this month, we told news of an upcoming Oblivion mod with as much heart and ambition as Morrowind, with some added perks introduced by Oblivion’s technology. We have since managed to contact the team behind this promising modification and asked them a few questions.

Read on as Benjamin Arlet, member of SureAI (the team behind the project) tells all about the project and the experiences the team have had making it…

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GameOnYou UK (GoY): The map featured on your website suggests that Nehrim is a large, expansive environment. How would you compare the size of the landmass compared to Oblivion?

Benjamin Arlet (BA): A bit smaller, but more than twice as detailed as Oblivion’s world. Since we don’t use a generator for the landscape, you’ll be able to discover a very lot of things outside the cities, and I don’t talk just about dungeons and ruins, but about locations that are really interesting and surprising.

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GoY: Oblivion is highly regarded as a modification platform and has thus received a huge amount of mods for it. Are there any mods in particular which you have implemented or have inspired you in the development of Nehrim?

BA: There are some mods from which we may have gotten one or two ideas, sure, but this isn’t the big deal. Most inspiration we gain is from Morrowind - Oblivion’s precursor, and from the Gothic games - a German RPG series with a great dirty, dark style. Additionally, we use several objects such as weapons or creatures developed by other modders in Nehrim, of course with their permission.

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GoY: Oblivion has a distinctive art-style, with original design and a detailed lore. What similarities and differences particularly stand out for you when comparing your total conversion to the original game?

BA: Well, our lore isn’t that extensive… you have to consider that it is only a few years old, in contrast to the nearly “ancient” lore of the TES games. You will feel our lore in-game, like the suppression of the magical races by the public, and of course you can read about it in books. Just don’t forget to mind who wrote the particular script, as history is always made by the winners, and they don’t care much about truth!

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GoY: A much loved feature of many open-world RPG games is side quests. I, for example was a big fan of Morrowind’s activities outside towns, such as people you meet in the large environment who would give you missions and we were disappointed that this did not return in Oblivion. Are you implementing side-quests in this mod and if so, in what form?

BA: Quests are a very important factor of our experience points based skill system, therefore yes, we have sidequests. But since we’re focusing in the main quest at the moment in development, I can’t tell you much about the other quests. Some of them can be seen in our gameplay videos on Youtube (in German though). In these examples you may see that we try to avoid quests like “Collect item x” or “Kill y”, but to make them witty and worth playing.

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GoY: Can you give us any information on the storyline of Nehrim, and what to expect on our first playthrough?

BA: Nehrim’s plot is very different from the ones you commonly expect in Role Playing Games or in Fantasy themed stuff altogether. That means, we have no bad man you have to chase throughout the game and whose motive is… well, being evil. Our villains, if you want to call them by that term, are far more complex.
On your playthrough you will encounter numerous different characters, a huge load of locations, including wide landscaped as well as deep dungeons, new spells, new weapons and armour and all the things more you expect to come across in an RPG.

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GoY: How long has this mod been in development for, and roughly how much of the game has been created so far? We’d be interested in finding out what features and aspects of the game have been completed and what troubles you may have encountered along the way.

BA: Nehrim has been in development since Oblivion was released, and now it’s done for about 75%-80%. However, the part that has still to be done is less hard to create than the past tasks.
The landscape, for instance, is nearly finished, and currently we’re doing the quest work.

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GoY: Finally, How would you summarise your mod in 7 words?

BA: anders, geistreich, umfangreich, aufwändig, spektakulär, vielschichtige Geschichte

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Oh, and for the record, Benni’s words of choice were “different, witty, extensive, elaborate, spectacular” and that it has a “complex story“.

For more information on Nehrim: At Fate’s Edge; visit SureAI’s Website or the Nehrim ModDB page.

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