Bethesda’s long-awaited Skyrim successor The Elder Scrolls 6 is still in active development. Following its iconic announcement seven years ago, the studio spent years developing Starfield before jumping into full production on the fantasy RPG in 2023.
While creative director Todd Howard has teased potentially shadow-dropping the game whenever its ready, The Elder Scrolls 6 will likely not release in 2026. In fact, Howard has now confirmed that the game will not be launching anytime before Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 6.
Speaking to Dutch outlet Power Unlimited prior to the release of Amazon’s Fallout Season 2 series, Howard was asked whether The Elder Scrolls 6 or Grand Theft Auto 6 will release first. While the Bethesda lead didn’t
“I’ve got my fingers crossed for GTA 6,” Howard said. “They are doing an incredible job. I know the guys at Rockstar, they are some of the absolute best at bringing a virtual world to life. It’s a world that like it would go on even if you weren’t there.”
Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 6 is currently scheduled to release on November 19, 2026, following a number of delays. While there is still space for The Elder Scrolls 6 to release in 2026 after Rockstar’s behemoth, it would make more sense to push the title into 2027.
Even still, very little is known about The Elder Scrolls 6 at the time of writing, and just three years of full production for a large, open-world, fantasy RPG filled with systems-driven gameplay does not seem feasible for the current games industry.
Following the release of The Elder Scrolls 6, whenever that is, Bethesda will start full production on Fallout 5. However, there are rumblings of a number of Fallout titles currently in development, including Fallout 3 Remastered from the team behind the recent Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered.
For more Bethesda news, read former designer Bruce Nesmith’s thoughts on why the studio’s Starfield project simply wasn’t as good as prior games. Additionally, read about how much of a pain it was to design Oblivion’s Radiant AI system, and how it improved in Skyrim.
