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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Hints

Random Gate Tips

  • 1 of 13: These gates start appearing after you finish the Main Quest called "Find the Heir," and are much more likely to appear at any given location after you finish "Dagon Shrine."
  • 2 of 13: Check the region maps to see where all random Oblivion gates can appear.
  • 3 of 13: If you go to a spot where there can be a random gate, but there isn't one there, try leaving and then coming back. Fast-traveling to a nearby location and then running back to the gate site often works.
  • 4 of 13: That is, if you haven't already closed a gate at that site, and there aren't already the max number of gates open.
  • 5 of 13: There can be up to 25 gates open at once, or up to 50 after you finish the "Dagon Shrine" main quest. If you're playing on the PC, you can use the console to see how many gates are currently open with the command show mq00.opengates.
  • 6 of 13: When you use a random gate, it'll always take you to one of the seven worlds that I have detailed hints for below this tip section.
  • 7 of 13: The worlds don't have any distinctive names (always "Wastes of Oblivion"), but they do have numbers.
  • 8 of 13: Right after entering one, you can use the PC Cheat Codes' TDT command to bring up a display that gives the current cell name, which will be "OblivionRD004Entrance" if you're in world 4, for instance.
  • 9 of 13: That doesn't always work, and can't be done in the Xbox version, so the first hint or two for each world describes what you see when you first enter it.
  • 10 of 13: You can visit various copies of the same Oblivion world several times, depending on random chance.
  • 11 of 13: You can control which world you get sent to by quicksaving right before going through a gate, then quickrestoring and trying again if you don't get the world you want.
  • 12 of 13: You'd do this if, for instance, you wanted to do world 2 several times to get lots of its great Hatred-brand artifact weapons.
  • 13 of 13: Even though you can get duplicate worlds by entering a lot of gates without closing any of them, it's best to finish and close off a world (see the General Oblivion Tips) before trying to get it again from another random gate. That keeps things tidier, and gets you more sigil stones.