Here's some quick info for those of you who haven't heard a thing about the game yet.

Oblivion is the fourth installment in Bethesda Softwork's increasingly successful Elder Scrolls series of Computer Role Playing Games (CRPGs). In good tradition, it will allow the player to go anywhere and do anything they want to.

The game will take place in the imperial province of Cyrodiil, the capital of the Empire of Tamriel. The game world is one of fantastic creatures, magic, mediaval combat, of adventure and exploration. The game does not force a particular role on the player but leaves it up to them to decide if they want to be a hero or an evil overlord or anything in between. Instead of having to decide on an alignment before starting the game, the actions dictate the player's relation to the characters in the game.

The player can choose to join factions such as the Mages Guild, the Dark Brotherhood (assassins), the Fighters Guild any many more. Factions issue quests and offer services to their members, and those that wor k in the best interest of their faction can rise in ranks to become it's leader.

These quests will send the player throughout a vast landmass with dungeons, ruins, towns and harbours. There are mountains, woodlands and rivers to explore. And even if you have completed all quests in all of the many ways possible and have explored all there is to explore - which may take months or even years - the game can be extended with so-called "mods", extensions to the game created both by Bethesda Softwork s and legions of "modders" - users that expand the game world with the help of the tools supplied with the game. These tools allow the addition of new land masses, the creation of new items, characters and so forth. There are already 1000s of mods for Morrowind, Oblivion's predecessor, and there will probably even more for Oblivion.

The game has been worked on since Morrowind's release (2002) and may or may not be released in 2006 (there is no official or unofficial release date as of now).