After over eight years since its initial announcement, The Elder Scrolls VI, the long-awaited next entry in the long-running series from Bethesda. This news comes via journalist The Elder Scrolls VIr, who spoke on it during a Q&A discussion concerning the massive changes coming to Xbox following this week’s announcement that the company would be cutting 3,200 jobs across all its studios over the next 12 months, including at Bethesda, as well as the departure of four studios for new management. He stated the game is “two to three years away at least” from release, suggesting a 17-year gap between its release and the juggernaut previous game in the series, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Companies under the Zenimax banner, such as Doom developer Id, saw massive layoffs, while The Elder Scrolls Online developer Zenimax Online also suffered a large number of layoffs. Xbox Boss Asha Shama has reportedly stated internally plans to focus on the company’s biggest franchises, such as Halo, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls, with this week’s announcement confirming previously announced IPs would survive the dramatic shift at Xbox, so there was some reason to suspect The Elder Scrolls VI would survive. Vethesda head Jill Braff has also claimed the company would now double down on their “Strongest Franchise,” which implies development on this and a new Fallout title will take top priority.
The question then moved to when players might be able to return to the world of Elder Scrolls, which was announced so long ago that it was done so during a Bethesda showcase at E3 via a CGI trailer. At the time, the studio had also announced a new IP, Starfield, which was released in 2023 and was Bethesda’s focus, so it was always expected that the next Elder Scrolls title would not be their focus until after that, but in the years since, we have seen nothing. There was some hope that the Xbox Games Showcase this year would give even a glimpse, but again, nothing. Worse yet, knowing what we know, a few titles seem to have been shown off in hopes of enticing buyers for studios rather than generating hype.
Todd Howard spoke of The Elder Scrolls VI back in March, at which time he joked we should all pretend Bethesda had never announced it. Before this, he had also commented that he would have preferred the comment not have been announced as early as it was. Much of his job has been to make fans aware that the game is still a ways off, something he was also quoted as saying back in November.
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