Great moments in PC gaming are short, bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls game (I'd briefly tried to play Morrowind on the Xbox but it just didn't take), and I didn't know much of anything about the series before I started playing. Most importantly, it never occurred to me that the Elder Scrolls were actually a thing. It just seemed like a good name for a fantasy game. Elder gods, old paper, yada yada. I get it. So there I was, deeply absorbed in Oblivion and taking orders directly from the Gray Fox, the mysterious leader of the Thieves Guild, when I'm told I need to steal a damn Elder Scroll. From the Imperial Palace. It's that moment when a character in a movie says the title, except instead of groaning (The World is Not Enough) I was full-on, hell yeah into it (Snakes on a Plane). It's really all in the execution.
It felt like I was about to steal the original Ten Commandments tablets or something, a holy object I had previously assumed was pure allegory. The timing was also perfect. This was my first guild, I was still fairly low-level, and the stakes of this mission conveyed that anything-is-possible sensation we're always chasing in new, still-mysterious game worlds when we haven't found the edges of what you can do. And it was intense as hell, because the Imperial guards could still absolutely wreck me if I got caught.
The thing that really cemented it for me was that I did get caught—or, rather, spotted, which meant I was running in terror from a small army of Imperial guards, the most treasured relic of the Empire tucked away in my inventory. I couldn't stop moving or I was dead. Somehow I made it to the secret chute in the fireplace and survived the massive fall with the special boots I was given for just this occasion. I made it!
There are many ways that mission can go, and it won't impress as much if you can sneak past the guards with ease or survive a huge fall with a shrug. But if you do it early in the game, by the skin of your teeth, it's a thrilling heist and one of Oblivion's most memorable moments.