We still can’t believe that over a decade has passed since Skyrim was released, and now we’re waiting patiently for The Elder Scrolls 6 release date to arrive. However, the game has a lot of pressure on its shoulders to overcome the massive success of its predecessor.
Bethesda Game Studios is following up on one of the best games of all time, but we have a lot of trust that the upcoming Elder Scrolls title will be one of the best Xbox RPG games available. So, here’s everything you need to know about the next installment in The Elder Scrolls series.
What could we see in The Elder Scrolls 6 gameplay?
Sadly, you won’t be playing The Elder Scrolls 6 for a while yet. This is according to Xbox head Phil Spencer, who claimed in 2023 during Microsoft’s court battle with the FTC that TES 6 is “so far out” and “a game that’s like five-plus years away”. It’s not only Spencer’s comments that point towards TES 6 being many years away. On March 25, 2024, Bethesda shared a celebratory Twitter post for Elder Scroll’s 30th anniversary. The studio says that the team has been “playing early builds” of the game – clearly, we’re still a ways out yet.
But what changes we can expect to see gameplay-wise? While we have yet to see any gameplay from Bethesda Game Studios, we can expect improvements across the board since the release of Skyrim game in the series in 2011. Firstly, we can expect better fighting and combat gameplay overall. While Skyrim was an exceptional game, it doesn’t have the best melee combat systems, so an upgrade that would offer more in-depth combat and spellcasting would be a huge plus.
Considering our above speculation, Bruce Nesmith, the former lead designer of Skyrim, has already claimed that his magic system from Skyrim will likely appear in some form in the upcoming entry. Speaking to MinnMax, Nesmith said that: “The whole magic system for Skyrim, I persuaded Todd to let me throw the baby and the bathwater out for Skyrim [sic] and start again from scratch”, before stating that “there will probably be traces of that in [ES6]. The whole ‘you do it to get better at it’, that’s going to continue.”
We also expect changes and improvements in relationships between you and the NPCs, a bigger area to explore with various new points of interest, exciting opportunities to build your own home, and more. So, we basically hope for a bigger and better Skyrim, which shouldn’t be too surprising.
What could The Elder Scrolls 6 location be?
The Elder Scrolls 6 location is expected to be Hammerfell, based on some teases from Bethesda Game Studios. For example, a tweet from The Elder Scrolls’ official Twitter account to celebrate the New Year for 2021 had three candles strategically placed; one above the map, one in Skyrim, and the last one underneath the label for Hammerfell. It is believed that the candle above the map lines up with space, referencing Starfield. The tweet also asks players to “transcribe the past and map the future”, and since Hammerfell has been explored in previous games, it could be the ‘past’ referenced in the tweet.
As for High Rock, well, the terrain of the only trailer for the game certainly features high areas with rock formations. But aside from that, Starfield also had a small teaser for Elder Scrolls 6 in a trailer, with an outline of a map of High Rock within the cockpit of a spaceship, as spotted by u/Fair_Industry7328 on The Elder Scrolls subreddit.
That’s everything we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 so far, which, unfortunately, doesn’t have a lot of solid evidence just yet. And given the history of the Starfield release date, it could be a while until we have any confirmed launch date and the game becomes one of the best games of all time or best Xbox games. For now, it may be worth playing some of the new Xbox games on the horizon in the meantime.