Oblivion:Cutscenes
Cutscenes are parts of quests where the game forces the player to wait for a pre-programmed sequence of events to occur before they can progress. Ideally we will want to find ways to skip cutscenes entirely via glitches or sequence breaks in quests or at least speed up each cutscene in the game.
Mechanics
Although much more research will need to be done, currently cutscenes appear to be handled in three main ways:
- Disable Controls: Some cutscenes completely disable the player's ability to move and interact with things and others allow the player to move around.
- Free Movement: Some cutscenes allow the player to move around but still have predetermined events that need to occur.
- Full Motion Video: One cutscene is a full motion video that requires the player to watch the whole video before returning to the game.
Cutscenes appear to work based on some combination of a series of timers as well as logic checks for when certain NPC interactions have occurred. Daedric shrine quests are a simple example of a cutscene. They disable the player's controls and then cycle through a series of audio clips of the statue talking, then enable the player's controls again once the list of audio files has played. The Audio Source Glitch showcases how this works, since these cutscenes advance instantly if the sound files are prevented from playing in the first place. It appears that in some situations, Quicksaving/Quickloading can advance dialog faster as well, although some quests actually take longer when this is done.
Disable Controls cutscenes have a unique way to skip them by using Load Warping to perform Cutscene Overlapping, allowing the player to regain controls during the cutscene.
Free Movement cutscenes are hard to determine how to skip given how each one seems to be programmed differently, so the current strategy is to find other objectives to achieve during these cutscenes.
In a unique example, the Full Motion Video cutscene can be skipped by minimizing the game and reopening it on PC.
Activating Player Superposition while moving and then activating a shrine, you can freely walk around while the cutscene plays. Currently there is no known way to be able to interact with things during this, but at the very least the player can start moving towards nearby objectives such as Heaven Stones or the first quest target in the case of quests like Molag Bal. This is the most promising lead we have so far in finding a way to reliably skip these cutscenes.
Languages
Oblivion has five languages that can be chosen:
- English
- Spanish
- French
- German
- Italian
Due to the way some cutscenes work, different languages take different amounts of time for each cutscene, which means technically time can be saved by simply playing on another language. We will be compiling the time it takes for all cutscenes to play out for each language in order to determine the ideal language option for the run.
If you are playing on the Steam version of the game, languages are selected via Language tab under the the Properties option for the game within Steam.
Cutscene List
This list is not fully cataloged yet.
Here is a list of the cutscenes in the game, along with any skips and language data we have compiled:
| Skip | Type | Quest | Cutscene | Current Strat | English | Spanish | French | German | Italian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✘ | Disable Controls | The Ultimate Heist | The Stranger meets the Countess | Quicksave/Quickload to advance dialog. | |||||
| ✘ | Free Movement | Defense of Bruma | Martin's Bruma Speech | None | |||||
| ✘ | Free Movement | Where Spirits Have Lease | Skeleton's first speech | None | |||||
| ✘ | Free Movement | Where Spirits Have Lease | Skeleton's second speech | None | |||||
| ✘ | Free Movement | Vampire Cure | Count's wife dies | None | |||||
| ✔ | Disable Controls | Corruption and Conscience | Aldos' argument with the guard | Cast Frenzy on Aldos and have any NPC kill him to advance the quest past the cutscene stage. | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Honor Thy Mother | Night Mother gets attacked | None (Quicksave/Quickload takes longer sometimes) | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Infiltration | Recruitment speech | Quicksave/Quickload to advance dialog. | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | May the Best Thief Win | Opening Instructions | Quicksave/Quickload to advance dialog. | |||||
| ✘ | Free Movement | The Killing Field | Goblin Fight Prep | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Sheogorath | Prophecy | None | |||||
| ✔ | Free Movement | Weynon Priory | Martin's Cloud Ruler Temple Speech | Fast traveling away and back skips the cutscene. | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Light the Dragonfires | Martin's final fight | None | |||||
| ✔ | Full Motion Video | Light the Dragonfires | Full Motion Video ending | Alt+Tab out/into the game. | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Caught in the Hunt | Kurdan kills Aleron | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Azura | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Azura | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Boethia | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Boethia | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✔ | Disable Controls | Clavicus Vile | Shrine start | Acquiring Umbra before starting the quest and talking to the butt of the dog statue skips this cutscene. | |||||
| ✔ | Disable Controls | Clavicus Vile | Shrine end | Acquiring Umbra before starting the quest and talking to the butt of the dog statue skips this cutscene. | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Hermaeus Mora | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Hermaeus Mora | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Hircine | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Hircine | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✔ | Disable Controls | Malacath | Shrine start | Sequence break past the first cutscene via freeing the Ogres in Bleak Mine. | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Malacath | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Mephala | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Mephala | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Meridia | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Meridia | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Molag Bal | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Molag Bal | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Namira | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Namira | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Nocturnal | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Nocturnal | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Peryite | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Peryite | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Sanguine | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Sanguine | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Sheogorath | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Sheogorath | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Vaermina | Shrine start | None | |||||
| ✘ | Disable Controls | Vaermina | Shrine end | None | |||||
| ✘ | Free Movement | Tutorial | Birthsign "he must help us" part | None | |||||
| ✔ | Disable Controls | Tutorial | Emperor assassination | Clipping out of bounds to kill the Mythic Dawn agent early skips this. | |||||
| ✔ | Disable Controls | Tutorial | "Stand back prisoner" sequence | Clipping out of bounds to get out of your cell skips this. | |||||
| ✔ | Free Movement | Tutorial | Valen Dreth banter and approaching guards. | Clipping out of bounds to get out of your cell skips this. |