Leaked Footage Shows ‘Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’ Was Planned for the PSP

It looks like we were very close to exploring Tamriel on the go.

It’s easy to forget today, but the PlayStation Portable was once a very capable handheld system. It had a long life cycle, sold over 80 million units, and touted a respectable game library.

One game series we never saw on the PSP, unfortunately, was The Elder Scrolls, but if recently uncovered footage is to be believed, the fourth game, Oblivion, was supposed to release on the platform.

In a series of videos from the gaming preservation channel PtoPOnline (via Kotaku), leaked footage of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion running on the PSP has been documented.

These videos have since been removed from Youtube, but are now on Vidme, and featured below.

https://vid.me/lW4i

https://vid.me/ECNN

https://vid.me/ECFN

As evident from the UI, this is an early build of the game, but it still looks remarkably close to its console counterparts. All instances of combat are fairly basic too, but still appears faithful to Bethesda standards. 

Andrew Borman, who documented this footage, explains that this port does not feature a massive open world, most likely due to hardware limitations, but instead uses a single hub world, which player use to travel to other locations. 

So what happened? Why did this game never see the light of day on PSP? 

Well, we don’t know for sure why this port was cancelled, but perhaps Bethesda had trouble adapting this ambitious series to the small handheld, in addition to releasing the console versions of the game on the new HD platforms of Xbox 360 and PS3.

It’s a bummer we never got this game for the PSP, but nevertheless, it’s always cool when footage like this emerges. 

And who knows, maybe we’ll get The Elder Scrolls VI for the PS Vita! 

(Yeah that’s not going to happen.) 

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