Oblivion:E3 Demo quest

Demo 6, showing the Dremora Kynval emerging from the Oblivion Gate and attacking the Imperial Legionnaire Captain

In May 2005, Bethesda Softworks exhibited Oblivion at E3. The demos shown included an early version of the Tutorial, tests of exteriors, dungeons, and early versions of Chorrol and Kvatch. Most of this content has been deleted from the game - all that remains of it is the quest itself (named E3 Demo quest in the game files), a loading screen used at the demo, the early version of Kvatch, a marker in the Imperial Prison for the E3 quest and some old voice files from back when Jeff Baker was voicing the Imperials (Wes Johnson did not get hired until later in the process).

The character used in these videos was a level 1 Imperial male battlemage called Bendu Olo, who had 10,000 health, magicka and fatigue.

Content

Demo 1

Early map of Cyrodiil featuring the city of Sutch

The first video was an almost 1:1 copy of the intro sequence, except Glenroy was voiced by Jeff Baker. It begins with the game being loaded up, showing an early version of the main menu, with a map of Cyrodiil still featuring the cut city of Sutch. A placeholder main menu theme, a rearrangement of the Morrowind theme, can be heard under Todd Howard's narration.

Some of Captain Renault's lines were re-recorded between the demo and the final release of the game. Patrick Stewart's lines, however, are largely the same recordings that made it to the final release.

Demo 2

This video shows the player walking through a forest west of Hackdirt, encountering Wendir, and fighting Alban Corinis. Morrowind hit sounds for the Imperial race can be heard during the fight.

Demo 3

The player enters the Ayleid ruin from Demo 2 and fights skeletons while dodging traps. At the end, he fights and kills a lich.

Demo 4

This video is set in an early version of the cavern segment of the tutorial, and illustrates traps, the journal, and the marksman system.

Demo 5

This video shows an early version of Chorrol, beginning with a conversation between two NPCs cut from the final game, Nelos Soleno and Marus Antonius (both voiced by Jeff Baker using the Morrowind voices for their respective races); the player then speaks to Marus and gets news of the attack on Kvatch. He then goes to Renoit's Books and speaks to Estelle Renoit, also demonstrating early versions of the Persuasion minigame and the female Imperial/Breton voice (with a more American-influenced pronunciation). Estelle then invites the player to the upstairs area of the shop, where we are introduced to her dog Thunder (also cut from the game). Estelle practices archery for a bit, then begins to read a book. Thunder then starts whining, and Estelle paralyzes him after a short amount of time. She then goes to sleep, but the spell she cast on Thunder has worn off, and the dog cries again before Estelle lights it on fire. Estelle then tells the player he needs to leave; he then decides to fast-travel to Kvatch, showing that fast travel from indoor areas was possible at this point in the game, and that the city of Sutch had not yet been cut (an early map of Cyrodiil featuring Sutch is seen).

Demo 6

This video shows the player assisting Imperial Legionnaires in defeating clannfears and a daedroth. A Dremora Kynval then appears from an Oblivion Gate and talks to the Captain before the player defeats him.

Content remaining in the game

The quest and the version of Kvatch used in Demo 6 still exist and can be activated by typing coc e3kvatchstart in the console. Some of Baker's voice files for Glenroy still exist in the game files, and can be accessed if Glenroy's race (or the voice type for the Imperial race) is switched to Redguard.