It’s not immediately different from Cyrodiil-still lots of green, with bushes and waterfalls like other areas of Oblivion’s base game. The first town I travel through is Riverhold, just over the southern border. In the same way I can appreciate how great a feat Elsweyr Anequina’s giant open expanse and huge cast of NPCs and quests are, despite playing through them ten years later.
I didn’t play Oblivion in 2006 when it released, but even 13 years later I can still intensely feel the awe that its opening fanfare and drawn-out 3D pan around the Imperial City must have inspired.
One of the earliest fan-made forays into the Khajiit homeland is ‘ Elsweyr The Deserts of Anequina’, originally published in June of 2009 by a Nexus Mods user called Iliana and including the work of dozens of other modders. In the meantime, modders have soaked up all the spare Khajiit facts available and designed the territory themselves. Although the Khajiit homeland did appear in The Elder Scrolls: Arena, it didn’t show up again in a proper Elder Scrolls game until an expansion to The Elder Scrolls Online in 2019. Khajiit lore in the Elder Scrolls games is varied and colourful, but has almost always been relegated to tomes and dialogue from cat-like merchants. Wherever game developers leave loose lore on the ground, modders are always sure to pick it up and incorporate it.
