It’s been 15 years since the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and players are still eagerly awaiting the release of the next game in the series. The Elder Scrolls 6 only started active development in 2023, and the upcoming RPG still has no release date, but fans are still hunting for any possible scrap of information.
While The Elder Scrolls 6 has not spent the last decade-and-a-half in development, fans are still miffed at the long wait between instalments, although Bethesda has claimed the mysterious game looks amazing. As it turns out, fans weren’t the only ones waiting to continue exploring the world of Tamriel, with many developers expecting the game to start development before Fallout 76.
In an upcoming episode of our FRVR Podcast, former Elder Scrolls loremaster and Skyrim co-lead Kurt Kuhlmann explains that everyone at Bethesda Game Studios expected to work on The Elder Scrolls 6 as soon as Fallout 4 wrapped. Instead, Bethesda moved onto Fallout 76 and then onto Starfield, although some early decisions for TES6 had already been decided.
When asked if he would’ve rather worked on The Elder Scrolls 6 instead of Starfield, Kuhlmann not only said he would’ve, but explained that Bethesda was expecting a return to Tamriel just like fans were. “We all expected it to be directly after Fallout 4,” Kuhlmann said. “Why wouldn’t it be? That’s what we did, and that was kind of the expectation. And then Fallout 76 came along.”
As Kuhlmann explained, Fallout 76 as a project was not supposed to rope in the wider Bethesda team. Instead, the project was set to be handled by a studio called BattleCry Studios, now Bethesda Austin, after the cancellation of their self-titled game, but it ended up pulling the main team away from early Starfield production into the multiplayer shooter.
“It wasn’t originally supposed to involve our whole studio,” Kuhlmann said. “But then, I mean, what we were supposed to be working on next—it wasn’t ever that we were about to suddenly work on TES 6, even though that’s what I think most people wanted… And then Todd was like: ‘No, we’re doing Starfield. I got that approved. It’s going to be a new IP. It’s going to be this ambitious [game]. It’s going to be the greatest space RPG ever made.’”
“I think that would probably be true for the majority of the studio.”
Former Elder Scrolls lore master and Skyrim co-lead Kurt Kuhlmann
In our discussion, Kuhlmann explained that Starfield was Todd Howard’s dream game, but the decision to focus on the ambitious space game instead of The Elder Scrolls 6 was a surprise for most at Bethesda. “Fallout 4 was a very successful game,” he said. “And I think he had maybe the opportunity and the ability to go to the people running Zenimax and say, ‘I want to not do TES 6’. Which seems like a pretty hard sell, right? And it must have been.”
For Kuhlmann, Starfield was not the project they wanted, and they expect it wasn’t the project many at Bethesda were that keen to create. “I would’ve much rather have been making TES 6 instead of 76 and Starfield, personally,” they said. “And I think that would probably be true for the majority of the studio. That’s what most people wanted to do, you know? It wasn’t like Starfield was this big internal like, ‘hey, we all want to make this space game, Todd.’ It was very much, ‘guess what, team? We’re making this space game.’”
The introduction of Fallout 76 and Starfield also broke the familiar cadence of Bethesda Game Studios. Before, the studio would work on an Elder Scrolls game and work on a Fallout game, which was a “nice” pace that reduced burnout. Kuhlmann explained that, despite his adoration for The Elder Scrolls ahead of Fallout, he likely would’ve burnt out working on the fantasy series all the time, and some devs that adored Fallout liked the break in development afforded to them by the arrival of a new TES game.
“It’s very nice to have that, ‘okay, now for something completely different’, every few years and it was something you could look forward to,” he explained. As for Starfield, the fact that it was even approved ahead of The Elder Scrolls 6 is still quite surprising to Kuhlmann, but shows “the pull” that Howard had following the back-to-back mega hits of Skyrim and Fallout 4.
While many fans are strictly single-player only, they expect the continued development of The Elder Scrolls Online took the heat away from the need for TES 6 straight away. “There was another Scrolls project, and it was ongoing,” he said. “It was creating new content constantly. And there are a lot of people—I know there are single-player people, I’m one of those people—but there are a lot of people for whom the Elder Scrolls is now ESO. That’s their experience with it, and that’s what they love, and that’s where they got their ESO, or their Elder Scrolls gaming experience.”
From my experience talking with Kuhlmann, it’s clear that the former Skyrim co-lead has a deep affection for The Elder Scrolls, and some affection for Starfield. Kuhlmann explained that the sci-fi RPG was a deeply “ambitious” project that the studio tried their hardest on, despite the fact that many would’ve likely wanted, like he did, to dive back into the world of Tamriel.
At the time of writing, The Elder Scrolls 6 is likely still years away, and little information is known about the RPG. There’s currently no release date, no confirmed location, and no confirmed subtitle—although, the fanbase is adamant on Sentinel as the subheading.
As development continues, despite the recent layoffs that have rocked Bethesda Game Studios, the spotlight is likely harsher on The Elder Scrolls 6. There’s an expectation that, after 15 years of waiting, TES6 needs to be the best game in Bethesda history, and hopefully it will be.
