Face mods for Oblivion Remastered save you from feeling as if your character belongs in a horror wax museum. The remaster improved the graphics, but the base face textures still leave plenty to be desired, especially if you want to create someone who looks alive and memorable.
These mods improve skin textures, add ready-made character presets and rework NPC faces, so Cyrodiil finally stops looking like a mannequin convention. For the full collection of Oblivion Remastered content, visit the main guides and mods page.
Young Textures Revamped
The standard young-face textures look too rough, as though your character is already thirty even with the age slider at its minimum. This mod completely reworks the youngest face textures, making skin fresh and detailed without radically changing the style.
- Retextures young faces for every race except Khajiit and Argonians
- Improved pores, skin details and overall appearance
- 1K textures with minimal performance impact
- Compatible with most other appearance mods
✅ How it changes gameplay: You can create a character who actually looks young, rather than middle-aged with a smooth face. The textures remain faithful to the vanilla style, avoiding a jarring contrast. The change is particularly noticeable on humans and elves: their faces come to life.
Izzli’s Clear Complexions
The author got tired of characters looking like ghosts from a wax museum. This mod subtly edits face textures for all eight female humanoid races, smoothing harsh details and adding natural midtones and light makeup where appropriate.
- Texture edits for every female humanoid race
- Two installation slots, Slot01 and Slot02, let you choose which face version on the age slider to replace
- Compatible with other face and body texture mods
- Very subtle changes that make your character look well cared for
✅ How it changes gameplay: Your heroine no longer looks as if she’s spent her whole life underground without sunlight. Vanilla makeup sliders are limited to orange blush, while this mod produces a natural result without endless tweaking. Faces become softer and easier on the eyes.
NPC Face Edits
Some important NPCs look rather odd in the remaster. This mod fixes the faces of more than 20 characters, including Agronak, Baurus and Lucien. You can also use the edits as presets for your own character if a particular look appeals to you.
- Cosmetic edits for important NPCs
- Presets can be applied to the player character
- Regular updates with new versions
- Requires RaceMenu Utilities and NPC Appearance Manager
✅ How it changes gameplay: Important characters stop looking like random faces in a crowd. More expressive, memorable faces help you get immersed in the story. If you like a particular NPC’s face, you can use their preset for your character.
Classic Faces — NPC Overhaul
Virtuos did a great job with the remaster, but many NPCs received facial redesigns that don’t always suit their personalities or roles in the world. This mod brings them closer to their original 2006 designs, with modern polish.
- Reworks NPC faces in the original game’s style
- Includes characters such as Rohssan, Thoronir, Agronak the Gray Prince, Hundolin and others
- Requires RaceMenu Utilities and NPC Appearance Manager
✅ How it changes gameplay: If you miss the original potato faces but want modern texture resolution, this is your option. The mod preserves the original characters’ feel, making them recognizable to series veterans. It’s particularly relevant if you played Oblivion in 2006 and remember its iconic NPCs.
HD Reworked Khajiits
Khajiit look decent in the remaster, but their textures could be better. This mod improves face and body detail, making them furrier and more pleasant to look at.
- High-quality Khajiit textures
- Improved face and body detail
- A significant improvement to first-person hands
- Affects the player and every Khajiit NPC
✅ How it changes gameplay: If you play a Khajiit, this is worth a look. It adds detail and makes their fur more realistic. The improvement is particularly noticeable on first-person hands: no more blurry textures when interacting with items.
Diverse Faces — RaceMenu Utilities Presets
Want an Asian face for an Akaviri samurai character, or looking for dark-skinned presets? This mod offers 21 ready-made humanoid face presets based on real ethnic features.
- 21 face presets for different ethnic backgrounds, including Celtic, African, Arab, Māori, Italian, Greek and others
- An optional version with black eyes
- Requires RaceMenu Utilities
- Load through the console with rmu load <name>
✅ How it changes gameplay: No more hours struggling with sliders to create specific features. Load a preset through the console and you’re done. The presets are based on real faces, so they look natural and varied.
Argonian Faces Redone
Argonians looked strange in the remaster’s trailer. The materials and textures were good, but the head proportions seemed wrong. This mod adjusts their base face mesh to bring their shape closer to Skyrim’s.
- Adjusts the base Argonian face mesh
- Proportions closer to Skyrim’s
- Preserves materials, textures, morphs and facial animations
- Minimal performance impact
✅ How it changes gameplay: Argonians stop looking like ugly lizards with disproportionate heads. The changes are subtle but noticeable: a more balanced head shape and a less elongated snout.
K1ngXurs Character Presets
Female character presets for Imperials, Wood Elves, Redguards, Nords and Bretons. Use them as a starting point for further customization or play with them unchanged.
- Ready-made female presets for five races
- Requires RaceMenu Utilities
- Load through console commands, such as rmu load woodelf
- The author also recommends Stylized Head Meshes
✅ How it changes gameplay: A quick way to get an attractive character without spending ages in the creator. The presets look good and suit different playstyles. One caveat: Redguards can have a visible neck seam with Stylized Head Meshes, though that’s a small issue compared with the overall result.
Smooth Beautiful Faces
This mod updates face textures to make skin smoother and younger. Its main focus is female characters, but male faces have also been improved.
- Improved face detail and quality
- More detailed lips
- Optional high-quality eyebrows
- 2K textures instead of the standard 1K
- Affects all races except Argonians and Khajiit
✅ How it changes gameplay: For the best results, move the character creator’s age slider all the way left to the youngest setting, though the mod improves faces of every age. Characters and NPCs look fresher and more attractive. The author recommends combining it with Realistic High Quality Skin for the fullest result. Not compatible with other face mods.
RaceMenu Utilities
This isn’t an appearance mod on its own, but half the mods here won’t work without it. RaceMenu Utilities lets you save and load character presets through the console and provides access to advanced customization.
- Save and load character presets
- A new GUI for adjusting morphs and colors
- Go beyond the standard slider limits
- Works through the console or a graphical interface opened with H
✅ How it changes gameplay: You get full control of your character’s appearance. Save a look you like and use it in other playthroughs. The GUI lets you choose any colors for facial features normally restricted to the default palette. Essential if you take character creation seriously.
NPC Overhaul — Oblivion Remastered
A major NPC appearance overhaul affecting 984 characters in its latest update. Its aim is to improve every named NPC while preserving their original design and personality.
- 984 reworked NPCs
- Fixes inconsistencies in eyebrow and hair colors, eye spacing and mouth size
- Covers all Oblivion and Shivering Isles locations
- Requires NPC Appearance Manager and UE4SS
✅ How it changes gameplay: The world is transformed: important NPCs look unique rather than like randomly cloned characters. The mod fixes visual issues such as mismatched hair and eyebrow colors and removes odd expressions. It’s an excellent foundation for other mods that refine individual characters.
Mod Installation Recommendations
Most face mods require UE4SS and NPC Appearance Manager to be installed correctly. If something goes wrong, those tools are usually the cause. You’ll find detailed installation and dependency setup instructions in my Oblivion Remastered mod installation guide.
Some face texture mods can conflict with each other. Read their descriptions and check compatibility before installing several at once.
Which Appearance Mods Suit Your Playstyle?
Choose one face texture overhaul, such as Young Textures Revamped or Smooth Beautiful Faces, unless its author provides a compatible combination or patch. A later-loading texture replacer can overwrite the earlier one; load order alone does not make both sets work together. For a quick start, presets from Diverse Faces or K1ngXurs Character Presets save time in the creator. For beast races, consider HD Reworked Khajiits and Argonian Faces Redone.
You can combine NPC overhauls: NPC Overhaul provides basic improvements for every character, while Classic Faces adds nostalgia to the key figures. Install the big overhauls first, followed by edits to individual NPCs.
This selection is only a starting point. My Oblivion Remastered mod setup covers everything from combat to homes and gameplay rebalances.
