The Elder Scrolls 6 is Bethesda’s most important project yet, finally following up on the studio’s 2011 juggernaut Skyrim. Currently in active development, Bethesda lead Todd Howard admits there’s a lot of pressure to deliver on the upcoming RPG.
Likely not releasing until 2028, if we’re lucky, Howard explains that The Elder Scrolls 6 is the studio’s most ambitious title yet. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Howard confirmed that The Elder Scrolls 6 is “our biggest project”.
“That’s what the majority of the studio is on,” Howard told the outlet. “We know we need to get it right, and it’s been a long time [coming].” Alongside Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda has a small team working on additional Starfield content as well as a team working on the successful online MMO Fallout 76.
Coming after the middling success of Starfield, Howard has confirmed that The Elder Scrolls 6 is being built on a brand-new incarnation of the studio’s in-house engine. While the studio has not confirmed what new features the engine has, this will be the debut of Creation Engine 3.
While the main Bethesda team works on new games, the studio has also partnered with Virtuos to deliver multiple remasters of existing games. Coming after the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, Virtuos is reportedly working on remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas as the next mainline game rests in pre-production.
Alongside commenting on The Elder Scrolls 6, Howard also commented on Arkane’s upcoming Blade game. Built under the Bethesda-Zenimax umbrella, the upcoming game has been silent since its 2023 reveal.
“I’m not at liberty to say when [we’ll see more],” Howard said, “but I saw some stuff just yesterday [on May 21] and the folks at Arkane [Studios, the developers] are doing a really, really great job.”
Right now, we have no idea when The Elder Scrolls 6 will release or even what region the game is actually set in, although that was chosen by Bethesda over a decade ago. “From when we were talking about it back in the Fallout 4 timeframe, there was a sort of consensus amongst a few people that were talking about it,” former Skyrim designer and Elder Scrolls loremaster Kurt Kuhlmann said earlier this year.
“We had an idea, but it was more of a consensus,” he said. “Like, ‘OK, where should the next game be?’ And the people that were talking all agreed. It was not an argument, it was like, ‘well, obviously it should be here’. We were more in the feel of it, in the setting; there was no story involved yet.”
