Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls 6 in 2018, which was eight long years ago. The gap between Skyrim’s release and that announcement was only seven years. It’s been long enough for Elder Scrolls fans to go a bit feral about it.
So when Xbox CCO Matt Booty gave Variety a post-SGF debrief interview, discussing topics like the absence of Arkane’s Blade from the Xbox Showcase (he hinted we might hear more on that front later in the year), you better believe the topic of The Elder Scrolls 6 came up. Why wasn’t it part of this year’s Xbox Showcase?
“I would say one of the more challenging balancing acts of someone in a job like mine is balancing that you want to go show the world all the cool stuff you’re working on,” Booty said, “and you want to get them excited early, but we also know that we want to wait till the right moment. And when you decide to show it, you want it to be the best you’ve got. And also that when you show the game, you’re also giving them a promise of, hey, it’s coming soon. So I can tell you, having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd [Howard] and seen Elder Scrolls playing, it looks amazing, and it’s coming along well. And we’ll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time.”
When The Elder Scrolls 6 was first revealed, Bethesda was trying to get out in front of Fallout 76 and Starfield to make sure players knew they weren’t abandoning the much-loved series. In the years since then, that crumb they dropped for fans has become a millstone around their neck. Both Fallout 76 and Starfield were divisive games, and a vocal subset of the playerbase has lost confidence in Bethesda’s ability to make another game like the classics.
It’s worth remembering that Todd Howard took a moment earlier this year to say the studio was returning its focus to The Elder Scrolls, and considering Fallout 76 and Starfield “a creative detour” that Bethesda was ready to roll back.
“And, as we come back to Elder Scrolls 6 that we’re doing now,” Howard said, “we’re coming back to that classic style that we’ve missed, that we know really, really well.”
So maybe Booty really did get to see The Elder Scrolls 6 looking amazing. I’d like to believe he did, just like I’d like to believe what he saw was further along than pre-pre-alpha. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a khajiit offering a great deal on a bridge I’d be daft to pass up.
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