The Elder Scrollsis very likely one of the most beloved fantasy open-world RPGs in the history of video games. With its rich lore, beautiful and immersive settings, all the tales told via the main stories and side quests, andiconic creatures, like those ofMorrowindand the Daedra have madeThe Elder Scrollsiconic. The series was always very successful, but the game that truly set the bar very high for the whole genre isThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. It’s been almost a decade sinceSkyrimfirst released, and despite its many re-releases, many fans are still eagerly waiting forThe Elder Scrolls 6to launch.
The Elder Scrolls 6was something people talked about for years, even prior to its official announcement at E3 2018. The presentation consisted of a very brief teaser trailer, showing fog, then a seemingly empty rocky and arid landscape facing the ocean, and a stronghold standing over a steep cliff. Many fans, knowing the geography and the ecology of Tamriel, quickly came to the conclusion that the new mainline game will be set in the region of Hammerfell, but that remains speculation for now.
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Starfield and its Priority Over The Elder Scrolls 6
Another significant detail that emerged during E3 2018 is thatThe Elder Scrolls 6is set to release only afterStarfield’s launch, the upcoming new IP from Bethesda. At the moment, some players claim thatStarfieldmay launch this year, but it is very likely that it will be postponed to 2022 for several reasons.
First of all, games have lately had the tendency of being released unfinished, either due to unreasonable schedules, or because of other factors. Whatever the reason, players are now diffident and often skeptical about new releases, foreseeing rocky launches, game-breaking glitches, and stuff of the sort. The other reason is thatStarfieldwill release for PC and both Xbox Series S and Series X. WithHalo Infinitelaunching in late 2021, it is unlikely that another triple-A game likeStarfieldis going to be released as well. More plausible is that it will release next year, maybe paired with other titles, like Obsidian Entertainment’sAvowed.
What This Means For The Elder Scrolls 6
Given thatThe Elder Scrolls 6will not release prior toStarfield, and thatStarfieldis likely to be a release for next yearrather than 2021, it is in the realms of possibility that fans will have to wait until the second half of 2022 for any news regardingTES 6.The Elder Scrolls 6may not see the light of day prior to 2023, or at the very best, by the end of 2022.
While this is an unfortunate sentiment for many players, it also goes to show that Bethesda cares about not breaking the development cycle and releasing unfinished products. It’s safe to assume thatdevelopment forThe Elder Scrolls 6began quite some time ago, and thatStarfieldwill simply affect its release date, not its development phase. Also, it is only natural thatThe Elder Scrolls 6takes longer than anticipated to release simply because it has the responsibility of being the sequel toSkyrim.Skyrim beingone of the most played video games over the past decade likely doesn’t help, especially thanks to the modding community keeping the game alive for so long.
Bethesda’s Radio Silence Over The Elder Scrolls 6
Considering it has been over one thousand days sinceThe Elder Scrolls 6’s first teaser trailer, and given that no further news has come from Bethesda, some fans have begrudgingly started to ask themselves why would Bethesda would bother teasing the game at this point. This has to be one of the weirdest records for a game to break, especially becauseThe Elder Scrolls 6is not considered to be in so-called “development hell” like many other games before it. So little is known aboutThe Elder Scrolls 6that it’s even hard to hypothesize its current development status.
If news indeed drops only afterStarfield’s launch, then players will more than likely look at a delay of almost four years sinceThe Elder Scrolls 6’s teaser. However, this is not the first time a game is announced with no follow-up news. An example of this isCyberpunk 2077, which was first announced in May of 2012, following a teaser trailer from January 2013, and then nothing up until 2018’s debut trailer came out.
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Other games have followed in these footsteps, and others were in development hell for almost a decade. An example of this isDiablo 3, which was first in the works back in 2000, soon afterDiablo 2came out. Then, Blizzard North closed in 2005, and a completely new development cycle was started in 2006, withDiablo 3finally launching in 2012.
Anotherunfortunate fate was that ofDuke Nukem Forever, which took, well, forever to come out. It was the sequel toDuke Nukem 3D, and it was in development from 1997 to 2011, a total of 14 years. This happened because of a plethora of factors, including the game’s engine being switched from Quake 2 to Unreal Engine, and the rights to the whole franchise being sold over to Gearbox Software in 2009.
A game that is more likeThe Elder Scrolls 6isBeyond Good and Evil 2, which was in a confusing development state for years, and to this day it is still lacking a release date. The game had been, according to its director, already in production in 2007, but it was scrapped and then officially announced again in 2017 with an official trailer. Four years later, the game is still largely a mystery.
Having said that, Bethesda’s silence could be interpreted as a bad thing, but since it was very straightforward about itsplans forStarfieldthis phase may be intended. It’s still a very odd choice to announce a game for which news will come only many years later, but it’s probably not all bad. Time will tell whether the game will be worth the wait, and for the time being, fans are left to speculate. Hopefully, not for another one thousand days.
The Elder Scrolls 6is in development.
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