This Oblivion Remastered Easter egg is forcing me to confront a difficult truth about early 2010s meme culture: It was never funny, actually
Oblivion Remastered is hiding some pretty great Easter eggs, but I hate to say it, this one just ain’t it.
I bear absolutely no ill will to my friends over at PC Gamer for bringing this Oblivion Remastered Easter egg, and by proxy a terrible 2011 meme, to my attention. I entirely blame early 2010s absurdist Millennial humor, which I distinctly remember fake-laughing to many, many times in college. Remember the Harlem Shake? That gosh darn screaming sheep? I slot the 2011 video Potion Seller in the same category.
I’m sorry, my Gen-Z readers, but for the sake of this story I’m trying to write, let’s take a trip back to 2011 and watch this thing:
I’ll proudly admit I hadn’t seen this video until just now, or if I had seen it before I couldn’t remember it. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t appeal to me at all; I’m not watching it through a lens of nostalgia harkening back to hazy, Rolling Rock-fueled parties where I’m being forced to watch a video I can’t hear because someone just lost a game of beer pong and flipped the table over. Oh, god.
To be fair, the Potion Seller meme is one of the more creative examples of that era’s very distinct style of humor, but it’s still unmistakably its time, and while I don’t think today’s memes are any better, I still don’t want to go back.
Anyway, the whole reason I’m bringing this up is because Oblivion Remastered seems to have a reference to Potion Seller. Twitch streamer TerraGuildTV found a new console command called “Altar.Player.PotionSellerGiveMeYourStrongestPotions,” which is on the nose enough, but its description further reads:
“Powers the player up with the means of defeating the Romans coming to conquer the last free village of Gaul. ‘Have you heard of my potions? …My potions are too strong for you, traveller.'”
Yeah, that’s definitely a Potion Seller Easter egg, and I’ll admit, a pretty apt one considering the character in the meme is clearly parodying Elder Scrolls NPCs.
Once again, well played Todd.
Speaking of, 19 years later, Todd Howard is still a secret NPC in Oblivion Remastered, and he’ll call you a bastard if you piss him off.
