Former The Elder Scrolls loremaster and Skyrim co-lead Kurt Kuhlmann is one of the major brains behind the current lore of the ongoing RPG series. From Daggerfall to Skyrim, and even some of Elder Scrolls Online, the RPG legend helped guide the series forward.
As fans continue to guestimate where The Elder Scrolls 6 is set, we took the opportunity to ask Kuhlmann where they’d like to go in a future entry. For the designer, there’s one idea that sticks out more than others, the native homeland of the reptilian Argonians: Black Marsh.
“I thought it would be really fun, actually, the idea to do Black Marsh,” they told us in an upcoming episode of our podcast. “That just has a lot that has a, not like Morrowind, but in the sense of it could be a totally different world. It would not be Cyrodil, and would not be Skyrim.”
Kuhlmann explained that they originally had the idea for a Black Marsh game back in the late 90s as the team was wrapping up The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard. “This never got past the, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be fun if we did the sequel to Redguard [stage]. But the Eye of Argonia is what we had in mind.”
The former Elder Scrolls loremaster explains that they were just “shooting the sh*t”, and it never went beyond talks. With that said, if Redguard was more successful, Kuhlmann explains it could’ve been possible, “but that’s not how it worked out”.
For the Elder Scrolls designer, the area of Black Marsh, also known as Argonia, is similar to Morrowind in its weirdness. “We haven’t seen much of it,” the designer said. “It would be a sort of jungle marsh, a very completely different setting. Argonians are completely—they’re not just another flavour of humans, right? They have their own thing going on.”
Kuhlmann, who left Bethesda in 2023 and isn’t working on The Elder Scrolls 6, explained that Black Marsh is “one of the least lore explored parts of Tamriel, so it’s a lot more open to doing stuff”. However, they admit that exploring the location properly would be more “difficult” to explore due to the density and unique nature of its lore.
For Kuhlmann, the weirder parts of Tamriel are more “interesting place[s] to explore setting-wise”. Unfortunately, as The Elder Scrolls is now an extremely popular IP, it seems unlikely that the series will ever get to properly these more wild settings outside of the ongoing MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online.
“Elsweyr has a similar problem with the Khajiit and all the different forms they supposedly have,” the former loremaster said. “If you’re going to try and stick to the lore, it’s going to be a really, super-weird place. And that’s not necessarily the most commercial, mass market, type of appeal.”
As a Morrowind die-hard, the weirder areas of Tamriel, and even those areas outside of it, are some of the most interesting parts of the RPG. Exploring the island of Vvardenfell in Morrowind with its weird characters, creatures, and unique architecture has always made it one of the more engaging worlds within the genre. There’s a lot of that to explore within the world of The Elder Scrolls, but will we ever see it?
For more from our chat with Kuhlmann, read the RPG legend’s thoughts on the ongoing Bethesda layoffs. Additionally, read about the issues with Starfield and how Bethesda wasn’t really suited to make the true dream version of the RPG.
