Key members of The Elder Scrolls 6 team have shared an update on the highly-anticipated game’s status, and the good news is development is “progressing really well”.
According to Bethesda’s Todd Howard, the “majority” of the studio is now working on The Elder Scrolls 6, which was first announced all the way back in 2018, though he noted the team “always overlap” when it comes to game development (as well as Elder Scrolls 6, the studio is also working on its Fallout series).
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“We’re very used to overlapping development,” Howard told Game Informer, saying the studio has “long pre-productions on things so that we feel good about them”. Howard added “it’s a process”, and one that everyone involved wishes went faster than it does. “But it’s a process that we want to get right,” the Bethesda exec said.
Bethesda’s studio director Angela Browder added thanks to the “leaps and bounds” made in the industry and hardware since Skyrim, the “possibilities” for The Elder Scrolls 6 “are crazy”.
“I will be honest, for me, sometimes I see things that are happening, and I go, ‘Angela from Skyrim days could never have envisioned seeing this like this now’, and that is a cool thing to be a part of,” Browder said. “And it’s a thing that I hope that when the day comes that our fans play it, that they – especially those of them who’ve been lifers with our brands – can really see how far it’s all come.”
Browder noted if you compare the original Oblivion with this year’s remaster, “you can see how far” technology has really come. “So, to me, The Elder Scrolls 6 is this endless set of possibilities that is really, really exciting as a developer, but really, really exciting as someone who really likes to think about how far everything has come in our industry,” the studio director said, before adding:
“It’s gonna be dope. It’s dope!”
During the same interview, design director Emil Pagliarulo said the “pressure” that the Elder Scrolls players put on Bethesda “we don’t put on ourselves”, though the developer understands why some get frustrated waiting for a game to come out.
“Games take a long time, and games get pushed all the time; GTA just got pushed again, which was the smartest thing they could do, because a game the size of these games, they take not just a long time to make, but a long time to spit and polish and iron out the bugs,” Pagliarulo said. “And so, what do fans really want? Do they want a game that comes out before it should and doesn’t meet their expectations? Or do they want the turkey that is in the oven for long enough to be delicious when it finally comes out of the oven, you know?”
So, to make sure The Elder Scrolls 6 comes out of the oven as a delicious turkey, Bethesda is going to take its time. How much time? Well, “as long as it needs to be to be great,” Pagliarulo closed.
Image credit: Bethesda
Back in 2023, Howard admitted he wished he had been a little more casual with the game’s announcement. Additionally, in October 2023, Skyrim’s lead designer Bruce Nesmith said Bethesda announced Elder Scrolls 6 when it did in a bid to appease any angry mobs which had their “pitchforks and torches” out, desperate to know more.
More recently, though, many Elder Scrolls 6 fans thought they found a clue pointing to a 2027 release date in a recent trailer for the Switch 2 edition of Skyrim.