Some games seem to perpetually exist in the space between announcement and release, and The Elder Scrolls 6 seems to be one of them. This development hell, so to speak, claims countless games, and some of them end up never being released. Hollow Knight: Silksong managed to avoid this fate by finally being released this year, but Grand Theft Auto 6‘s endless delays mean an escape is far off. An escape sounds almost impossible for ES6 at this point.
Elder Scrolls 6 Update Brings Bad News
It’s been over seven years since a new Elder Scrolls title was announced, and literally nothing else has happened since then. Even now, Todd Howard, the president of Bethesda, is stating via GQ that the Elder Scrolls 6 is “still a long way off”. He continued, “I’m preaching patience. I don’t want fans to feel anxious.”
“I do like to have a break between them, where it isn’t like a ‘plus one’ sequel,” Howard added. “I think it’s also good for an audience to have a break. ‘The Elder Scrolls’ has been too long, let’s be clear. But we wanted to do something new with Starfield. We needed a creative reset.” He did reveal some good news, which is that Bethesda is currently playtesting the game. That implies that it’s at least somewhat playable, and that a release is actually possible.
As for when that will happen, nobody knows, and Howard may not even reveal that much. “I like to just announce stuff and release it,” he said. “My perfect version — and I’m not saying this is going to happen — is that it’s going to be a while and then, one day, the game will just appear.” The Oblivion remaster surprise drop was a test run, and it “went well,” so they could employ that strategy in the future.
Still, even though fans are anxiously waiting any sort of news, there is none. The only news is that it’s still going to be a while, and we don’t and may not ever know just how long. It seems foolish to think, with all the hype that grows daily while players wait for this game, that Bethesda might just stay silent and then release the game quietly, but that may end up being what happens.
Other games, namely Hollow Knight: Silksong, have made it out, and that should bode well. Team Cherry is a tiny indie studio, and while it took forever, they came out with the game they promised. Bethesda, as a AAA studio, has no excuse. They shouldn’t have taken this long (or shouldn’t have announced it yet), but there is still hope for the game to actually come out someday because of that.
And to Howard’s credit, he swears that they are working hard on the game. He said, “We have hundreds of people on ‘Fallout’ right now, with ’76’ and some other things we’re doing, but ‘The Elder Scrolls 6’ is the everyday thing.” Starfield isn’t as active anymore. Fallout 4 is very old now, and while 76 is live service, that doesn’t require any development, so Bethesda can and is seemingly focusing entirely on ES6.
Conclusion
It may be years before The Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, but it is apparently coming out. Those are the two messages to take away from Todd Howard’s interview. It’s a long way off, but they are working on it. Everyone expected the game to still be a long way off given the lack of information, so it’s at least good to hear that progress is happening. It’s just taken a really long time to even get to this point.
