It happened back in 2018, on a day in June – in the middle of the E3 show Bethesda’s game director took to the stage to make an announcement while fans waited with bated breath. After this, a teaser trailer was played, revealing that the Maryland game studio was working on The Elder Scrolls VI.
Probably the most eagerly anticipated game of all time, this sequel to famous RPG Skyrim is yet to arrive, and might not do so until the next decade – the 2030s – despite being announced in 2018.
That same day, Bethesda also announced Starfield – a spacefaring RPG which hit the shelves more than five years later (in 2023) and which will be released on the PS5 on April 7, after remaining a PC and Xbox exclusive all this time.
And one of the reasons given by Bethesda game director Todd Howard for the Elder Scrolls VI not having been released yet is the fact that so many people are still playing their current games.
“We also, again, have that benefit of having so many millions of people playing our other games that we’re actually trying to figure out how to serve those other audiences while we make a new one”, Howard told video game outlet GamesRadar (via GameSpot).
These games include Starfield and, of course, the company’s post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout 76.
Starfield, as stated earlier, is coming to the PS5 next week (April 7). The game has been updated numerous times since its original release in 2023, keeping Bethesda Game Studios busy and unable to concentrate on The Elder Scrolls VI. Aside from the PS5 version of Starfield, the game is also getting a massive patch on all platforms, which features more additions and improvements to the game, and also a new DLC named Terran Armada. This is something which Bethesda must have devoted many man hours to, so it’s not surprising that there’s no release date for The Elder Scrolls VI yet…
There’s also the fact that Bethesda plans to keep supporting Starfield. So said creative producer Tim Lamb in an interview, stating that “when we launch a game, our plan is always long-term support” and that there is “more to come for Starfield”.
And what about Fallout 76? Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic RPG has grown in stature since its release in 2018 to mediocre reviews and player disappointment. Coming out as a flawed multiplayer experiment, it’s now a fully-fledged single player game with a ton of content, with the multiplayer element having faded into the background. Bethesda has released big updates for Fallout 76, expanding the map and adding new quests, characters, storylines and gameplay possibilities in expansions like Skyline Valley and Burning Springs.
The Maryland company plans to add to the game in 2026, with creative director Jon Rush saying that the game could get “new systems or new ways to engage with existing content” this year.
Despite being announced in 2018 by Bethesda boss Todd Howard (pictured), The Elder Scrolls VI might not arrive until more than a decade later.
It’s no surprise, then, that we haven’t seen absolutely anything of the Elder Scrolls VI since that announcement day back in 2018, as Bethesda is too busy updating its current games to make much progress on the eagerly anticipated RPG.
Actually, recent comments by head honcho Todd Howard suggest Elder Scrolls fans might be waiting a very long time. The man has gone as far as saying people should “just pretend we didn’t announce it” and “it doesn’t exist”, meaning a release date might be far away in the future…
The Elder Scrolls VI is also likely a very ambitious game – gamers’ expectations for it are undoubtedly sky high – after all, Skyrim is arguably the best and one of the most popular RPGs of all time. Bethesda will want Elder Scrolls VI to be cutting edge technically and in terms of gameplay. This coupled with the fact that Sony could be delaying its next-gen console (and Microsoft will likely too) and that The Elder Scrolls VI could be next-gen only, we might not see the game until the 2030s…
There’s a possibility, though, that with the change in leadership at Microsoft, things could be different… You see, former Microsoft gaming division chief Phil Spencer retired early this year. It may be that his replacement chooses to tighten Bethesda’s screws and force them to release The Elder Scrolls VI much earlier. After all Bethesda Game Studios is a Microsoft studio, and has been one since its parent company Zenimax and publisher Bethesda were acquired by Microsoft in 2021, and the new gaming division chief might want to curtail Bethesda’s independence and make them focus on finishing their eagerly awaited Elder Scrolls game.
But then there’s the possibility this may not happen, and a long wait until the late 2020s of early 2030s in store for Elder Scrolls fans… Whatever the case, here’s hoping The Elder Scrolls VI ends up being an incredible RPG that both fans and newcomers can love when it hits shelves in the future.