The Elder Scrolls 6 – when will it be released?
TES 6 will inherit much from Skyrim
Is there another equally big game that we’ve been waiting for as longingly and as long? Only Grand Theft Auto VI could perhaps stand in competition with The Elder Scrolls VI (interesting coincidence of numbers, isn’t it?)-although Bethesda Softworks’ RPG series has a two-year “head start” in terms of time since the release of the last installment.
Admittedly, The Elder Scrolls Online was released in 2014, but it is impossible to consider this item in the category of a successor to Skyrim. No matter how much the ZeniMax Online studio tries to imitate the singleplayer installments of the series in it, this is a flesh-and-blood MMORPG, and as such it cannot be considered a full-fledged alternative for fans of solo adventures.
So let’s put together everything we know about the game and consider how much longer we will have to wait until the release of The Elder Scrolls 6. New news indicates that this project is not standing still. So with each passing day, the wait will get shorter.
The Elder Scrolls 6 – when will it be released?
The official announcement of TES VI came in mid-2018. In fact, however, the word “announcement” has been misused here. The above 36-second video, which was shown at the time, was meant to give impatient gamers a message that can be summarized to one short sentence: “The Elder Scrolls 6 will rise.” No less, no more.
Bethesda has already clarified that this “announcement” does not at all mean an imminent release of the game. The first in line were to be Fallout 76 (released in the fall of 2018) and Starfield (with a debut in September 2023).
TES Online has taken up most of Tamriel, so there may not be enough room for the sixth installment of the series.
Since Bethesda Game Studios was not used to practicing so-called multitasking – i.e., creating with full power more than one big game at a time – it is not a good idea to create more than one big game at a time. work on The Elder Scrolls 6 will only truly begin once the space RPG gets its due post-release support.
And while the conceptual part of preparing a successor to Skyrim is most likely already underway – and perhaps even nearing completion – it will still be years before the game is made. How many? No less than four or five – that’s for sure, given how Starfield’s production cycle went.
The latest clues about the release date of The Elder Scrolls VI were provided by Phil Spencer. Testifying before the court on Activision Blizzard’s acquisition of Microsoft’s head of the Xbox brand (under which Bethesda falls) expressed his belief that the release of The Elder Scrolls 6 will take place no sooner than five years from now.
Now it has been reported that The Elder Scrolls VI will debut no earlier than 2026, which fits Spencer’s words.
When it comes to finally setting a release date for The Elder Scrolls 6, a not inconsiderable role will also likely be played by The Elder Scrolls Online, cited in the introduction. While for players these two items are not equivalent, the publisher looks at the issue differently.
For Microsoft and ZeniMax Media (owners of Bethesda Softworks), the market coexistence of such two titles would mean the so-called cannibalization of one by the other. That’s why I expect pressure on developers not to emerge from the shadows with a Skyrim successor until the health of TES Online begins to wane.
For now, however, it doesn’t seem to be happening – one can only hope that the situation will change in a few years. As an aside, I’d also like to add that a parallel can be drawn to the Grand Theft Auto series in this regard as well – the non-stop golden egg-laying GTA Online (the online module of GTA V) has significantly influenced how long we have to wait for the sixth part of the series.
Will The Elder Scrolls VI be an Xbox-exclusive title?
Another question that ignites many gamers in the context of the sixth installment of The Elder Scrolls series is: will it be an exclusive title for Xbox consoles? After all, Bethesda is currently in the hands of Microsoft, and Starfield has bypassed PlayStation. Those hoping to play this RPG on Sony’s platform after all, must – at least for the time being – put it on hold.
That’s because, as reported by Stephen Totilo, a journalist for the Axios website, in the publicized documents prepared for Microsoft’s hearing with the Federal Trade Commission regarding the Redmond giant’s recent acquisitions, it was reported that the The Elder Scrolls VI will hit PC and Xbox consoles exclusively. This is also confirmed by Sony, which in a statement to the UK Competition and Markets Authority said that shortly after Bethesda’s acquisition by Microsoft, plans to release TES VI were shelved (via GamingBolt).
In addition, the published documents included the information already mentioned in this article, stating. The Elder Scrolls VI will debut no earlier than 2026. That’s quite a long time and we have to remember that much can still change, including the issue of exclusivity for PC and Xbox consoles.The Elder Scrolls VI is out of pre-production
In an interview that Bethesda CEO Peter Hines gave to the website Vandal, we can read that The Elder Scrolls VI has entered the active production phase. This means that part of the team has been assigned to this task. Bethesda, however, is still focused on Starfield – as the game is facing post-release support in the form of add-ons and bug fixes – but there has also been a breakthrough in the production of Skyrim’s successor.
Pete Hines was quick to add, however, that it is still in the early stages of production and there will be no new news on The Elder Scrolls 6 any time soon. First we will have to wait until Bethesda considers Starfield as a closed chapter, and then make significant steps in the production process of the newer game. Most likely, this means that the next TES will not appear before 5 or 6 years from now. And that too, provided the company doesn’t decide to support Starfield longer than it originally planned.
Nevertheless, this is exciting news that fans of the series have been waiting years for. Now it remains to keep our fingers crossed that nothing will stand in the way of the developers’ realization of this ambitious project, which has the bar set very high anyway. Despite more than 10 years on its neck, Skyrim can entertain better than many newer games, if only because of the convincing creation of a world that doesn’t seem to focus on the player and the enormous freedom available there.
The Elder Scrolls VI is expected to be wildly ambitious
The Elder Scrolls VI, the successor to the revered Skyrim, is expected to be the ultimate fantasy simulator.
In an interview with Todd Howard conducted by GQ editors, the game’s director admitted that he is approaching the project with great ambition. At the same time wonders if the game was announced too early.
According to Todd Howard, taking such extremely long gaps between installments is not a good thing. However, this can’t quite apply to the brand, as Skyrim is still very popular, plus The Elder Scrolls Online is being developed and gaining new players. So the fan community still remembers the successor to Skyrim.
Bethesda was supposed to return to the development of The Elder Scrolls 6 as soon as the main work on Starfield was completed (which it was), so it can be said that TES 6 development is only starting now. The company’s plans also include Fallout 5, but that’s even more distant in the future.
The Elder Scrolls 6 – what do we know about the game?
Nothing, actually. When the developers at Bethesda Game Studios – headed by Todd Howard – are taken aback, their vague words echo only vague indications that the upcoming game will be big, groundbreaking and will surpass Skyrim. But you know how it is with developers’ PR-speak.
In the aforementioned 36-second teaser trailer, we saw a camera fly over a mysterious land – meadows, mountains, cities. Fans instantly rolled out maps and started matching what they saw to the different regions of the continent of Tamriel (or more broadly: the world of Nirn).
The provinces of Hammerfell or the High Rock were often pointed out as candidates for the action location (or both together), which have a near-temperate climate and are not coincidental in that they appeared in 1997’s The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall.
I, however, think that this teaser trailer was no indication at all – rather a hastily modeled “generic” landscape in a fantasy reality, meant to serve as food for the imagination. After all, it was published five years ago, and the game’s release is another five (or so) years away. Over the course of a decade, the developers may have changed their minds ten more times about where they will set the action of The Elder Scrolls VI.
I would expect – though this is only speculation – that Bethesda Game Studios would want to choose a region that did not appear in TES Online. And since ZeniMax Online may cover almost all of Tamriel over the next five years, I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to move the series to any of the other continents that have so far been shrouded in an aura of mystery (e.g. Akavir, Atmora, Pyandonea). Such a “revolution” would also serve as an effective means for the developers to drum up fan excitement for the game.
TES 6 will inherit much from Skyrim
It looks like The Elder Scrolls 6 will also use ideas from Skyrim. Former Bethesda employee, Bruce Nesmith, is convinced that the expo system will be based on what we saw in The Elder Scrolls 5. A similar model was available in Starfield, only it was modified to fit more under the sci-fi theme. Nevertheless, the core of character development and the character’s gaining of levels remained the same.
This, of course, does not mean the absence of changes in The Elder Scrolls 6. The new game will expand the old ideas and introduce additional elements to make progression much more enjoyable. Nevertheless, Bruce Nesmith believes that at its base it will simply be Skyrim, but modernized. This is actually good news, because this idea of leveling heroes is simply proven and works well in Bethesda games. No revolution in this regard can be counted on. Especially since fans of the brand reportedly want the same thing, but with more flair – The Elder Scrolls 6 is supposed to be Skyrim, but better.
The Elder Scrolls 6 – gameplay
There is no doubt that TES VI will retain all the pillars of Skyrim and its predecessors. You can count on a vast and “living” open world, first- and third-person views, an extensive character development system, comprehensive mod support or a multitude of factions to join. In addition, games developed by Bethesda Game Studios and released after Skyrim – most notably Fallout 4 and Starfield – indicate what innovations we can expect.
Certainly, the developers will strive to develop a combat system even closer to action games. This is a general trend prevailing in practically the entire RPG genre, from which even Final Fantasy does not escape. The market is still not saturated with FPP games with “nicely” realized magic and sword combat, so Bethesda has a chance to give a show off in this field.
Another must-have item in today’s open-world games is to give the player his own space, which he can freely personalize. In Fallout 4 we rebuilt a settlement, in Starfield we freely shape our spaceship – and what will we find in The Elder Scrolls VI? Whatever it will be, it will surely become one of the key elements of the game, projecting other aspects of the game (maybe even the location of the action and the course of the plot).
In addition, it is highly likely that character development mechanics will be deepened, so that the player will have something to upgrade and unlock for hundreds of hours. I also expect further work on the random quest generation system (Radiant Quest), which in Starfield is already capable of placing not only “procedural” characters, but also settlements, outposts or other locations in the hero’s path.
Who knows, maybe Bethesda will harness the increasingly advanced artificial intelligence and give us a breakthrough. in the field of interacting dynamically with the virtual world and its inhabitants? I think that with such an innovation, the gaming community could go crazy for The Elder Scrolls VI – and the developers would reward us for waiting several years for this game.
Whatever the developers don’t have hiding in store, however, one thing is certain: the release of The Elder Scrolls 6 will become a major event and a benchmark for the entire game industry for many years to come.
