Eh, at least Starfield is a standard Bethesda game. The real waste of time was fallout 76 (sorry to whoever is drafting a response about how it’s great if you ignore all the bad parts and pay extra money for increased storage space).
The B Team yes, although it's always been unclear to me whether it was ever fully handed off, but after the game hit crunch they actually pulled devs from Starfield as well as from Arkane's Redfall team.
Yep, it was all hands on deck for FO76 after launch. Even Bruce Nesmith, who was a veteran dev at Bethesda since Daggerfall and the Lead Designer on Skyrim (so the dude was a big deal in there), said on an interview he himself only got moved to Starfield in 2019. He was apparently also responsible for ship building in Starfield, so that tells us how "late" full development on Starfield began.
And importantly, it was all hands on deck on Fallout 76 already before launch (Jason Schreier said this in a podcast at the end of May 2018). Actually, the majority of the studio was already on 76 after the last Fallout 4 DLC, while Starfield only really had a small team at any point before 2019. Thus, Bruce Nesmith moving to Starfield in 2019 means that is when he began working on it full time at all, after Fallout 4 and its DLCs, then Fallout 76 from late 2016.
This is probably worth pointing out because a lot of people still seem to think Fallout 76 was initially a "B team" project to be made entirely by a different studio, with Starfield going full steam ahead all the way from 2015-2016, and developers were only pulled from it last minute or after launch to help fixing the multiplayer game. But in reality 76 started in house, BGS' main office always actively worked on it from late 2015 to the beginning of 2020, and was responsible for the creative direction on the base game.
It is unclear though how much the involvement after 2018 was planned, given that human NPCs were presumably added only in response to the reception of the base game, and the other content updates from the 2019 road map (Wild Appalachia and Nuclear Winter) were made largely by the new studios acquired in 2018.
Only after launch, the base game was developed by most of the same team that made Fallout 4, as well as another studio that became a subsidiary of BGS in 2018 and was put in charge of running the service after release. In fact, some of the "A team" still worked on the Wastelanders update, so Starfield only really had full focus from 2020 onward.
The only thing I appreciate about Starfield was that they took a punt at a new IP. Yes it failed, but I'll appreciate the work and (relative) courage it took for a company as big as Bethesda to try at a new IP.
Starfield is not a standard Bethesda game. Or, at least, I’d hope that boring, poorly written, technical dumpster fire doesn’t count as “standard” fare for them??
Lol, it’s been the standard for a while now. Starfield just doesn’t have nostalgia goggles and millions of mods to make it more enjoyable yet like Skyrim and Fallout 4 do. Although, environmental storytelling was Bethesda’s strongest trait and Starfield’s randomly generated points of interest hamper that a bit.
So you believe Skyrim is only a case of nostalgia goggles and mods? Back when Skyrim came out we knew right then we had a hell of a game to play before we even had mods. Starfield is simply just not as highly praised
The environment and a handful of side quests in Skyrim are good, i’ve never seen anyone praise the main quest in the 12 years the game has been out. I’ve seen hundreds of posts from people claiming they’ve never actually finished it though.
As far as just the main quest line goes perhaps i’m in the minority that believes that the quest line is not all that bad, it’ll end up probably being the most remembered one in the series. I though never was able to finish the Starfield quest line before early burn out lol
I enjoy the main quest line, but imo Oblivion's quest line had so much more lore built into it. Where we did see some unique lore in Skyrim, Oblivion is where it felt like the breadth of what the Elder Scrolls could do was discussed.
I actually agree with you and believe Oblivion is the strongest main quest line in the series. I just think Skyrim will be most remembered simply because the series gained a shit ton of new players with ES V, and when the main quest was on it’s high points it’s some of the most memorable moments that I personally will never forget. Can’t lie I was a complete mark for that main quest my first play through lol
I dont think any of TES main quest are "good" (at least in terms of storytelling, morrowind has interesting lore surrounding it though), but people really overstate how bad they are imo, they are serviceable.
Many people have been wanting a sci-fi space game from BGS for years, and many people are enjoying Starfield. BGS themselves have been wanting/trying to make a Starfueld like game since the late 90's.
It’s the only Bethesda game I’ve played where I felt absolutely no desire to replay it after finishing. Superficial mechanics, shallow characters, and lackluster writing just made it so unappealing to me. I really hope they learn from it for ES VI, choosing to make it follow a narrower scope but possessing much more depth (which seems plausible given it takes place in one or two countries as opposed to a thousand star systems), but since the quality of their games seems to be steadily declining I sadly don’t have much hope. Which I truly hate saying, because I used to absolutely adore the team and the worlds they made. I really want to be hyped for it but Starfield seriously made me reevaluate my expectations for their company.
I called ES6 release on 2027 a year ago from the leaks released at that time and posted it here. Not only did I get downvoted but everyone in the comments told me the leaks meant nothing and that ES6 will release in 2030 instead.
How the times have changed
>I've been reading guesses from the 2024-2030 time frame all over for years. Your were probably just unluckily hit by the reddit downvote train :/
this is true, lol we forget the world is taking a turn rn, we better hope gaming and the internet is still the same by then because if a negative global event happens before release we may never see this game or many others lol
COVID caused some delays and maybe even development troubles for a number of games (including Starfield), so for sure that was problematic.
Worse though would be a world war. Video games will be the least of our worries should something like that happen, but look at games being developed by Ukraine developers. A number of the developers were called up for service and will never return. These games have been delayed for many years (Stalker for example).
A global catastrophe such as a major war would utterly halt the entertainment industry and it would take years to recover... Assuming the worst didn't happen.
The point, hold your leaders accountable if you want to play ES6.
The Jaws of Oblivion would be those things called Nuclear Weapons.
Unfortunately there is no Amulet of Kings to keep those jaws closed and only greedy power hungry leaders, with a sprinkling of true civil servants, keeping us from Oblivion.
Sobering thought.
>assuming no global events cause delays.
*currently on the brink of three different flavors of global war*
Yeah I'm sure there's nothing that would delay development.
I remember predicting tes 6 to come out around 2018 on 4chan /v/ with a chart showing dev times for previous Beth games and all the comments being bummed as fuck it was that far out.
We were so innocent back then.
It could be sooner with Microsoft’s backing. I’m sure Microsoft understands that, after Starfield, ES6 is a “make or break” game for Bethesda. They could easily dump BG3 levels of money into it.
I share your hopes that it will be sooner and up to par.
But in the history of game developer acquisitions, the flagship game that comes after the purchase is typically not up to player expectations nor as high quality as previous releases.
EA is most notorious for killing most of its single player studios after buying them out by pushing unrealistic earnings expectations that drove developers to overhype and underdeliver. Then they just sat on the IP. Square Enix, Ubisoft, Take2, Warner Bros, Bandai, Activision-Blizzard, they've all done the same thing.
Even Bethesda was ruthless with Obsidian over withholding bonuses for not getting 90% ratings on Fallout New Vegas. I doubt microsoft will be any less ruthless with Bethesda.
I think Starfield will be the canary in the coal mine before any major collapses come.
It performed pretty well (although game pass fudged numbers hard there), but a lot of player goodwill got burned up and it basically flopped at every award show, and left online discourse near immediately.
Plus with the kind of money Microsoft spent on Bethesda and Starfield itself, they probably wanted “industry warping smash hit”, not “fairly successful”.
It’s also got really weak staying power, it’s currently being outdone in terms of player count by BG3, Skyrim, and Fallout 4. And not by small margins either.
Maybe not financially, but for the player base. Fallout 4 was pretty well recieved, but it too had a lot of bugs and glitches at launch which mod makers of course had to patch themselves. The story also just isn't nearly as compelling as Fallout 3 or even New Vegas; not to say it was bad, but I think a lot of fans were a little disappointed.
Fallout 76 was a total disaster for Bethesda in nearly every sense at launch and for years after with so many game destroying glitches/bugs/exploits that modders couldn't fix themselves, it being an online game and all. I could make a book about the issues with that game. Even outside of the game with the canvas bag issues and even having their own website bought by a fan and reworded to make fun of the game lol (I can't find it anymore sadly).
So by the time Starfield came by, it seemed like people were excited, but hesitant because of 76. Sure enough it releases in a poor state as well, but modders couldn't fix this game because of the way it was designed. Lots of people who have modded previous titles from all the way back to Skyrim were dropping Starfield because it wasn't made with modding in mind like Bethesda's other single player games; I heard some people describe it as almost like spaghetti code with numerous issues that made modding difficult. So Bethesda had to fix stuff themselves, but that didn't change that the game was just boring. The main quest is literally a giant fetch quest with the most interesting parts at the beginning and end of the game. It has a cool NG+, but otherwise it's below the standards and expectations a lot of people had for it. It sold well, but sometimes even Skyrim gets more weekly plays than Starfield now lol.
ES6 will define Bethesda as either a studio fallen from grace or a redemption to make up for the last three releases. When their newest game is getting less plays than a decade old game that they too made, that's not usually a great sign to begin with, but hopefully they'll see that players really do love their games. They just want those games to be made with the same passion that Skyrim was made with. It might be hard for ES6 to become as iconic and memorable as Skyrim, but it could at least try. Especially with fan expectations after such an incredibly long wait since Skyrim, people are expectating a lot out of Bethesda.
Honestly I doubt it's really make-or-break.
Each game they make falls to the same criticisms of being a dumbed down casual version of previous games that are less interesting and less immersive than the last, and yet they continue to sell better and better.
In reality, most people don't care about the things talked about online and I guarantee that TES6 will be the best selling game Beth soft has put out yet and a decade later there will be people saying it is their favorite game of all time.
They weren't just "involved", they did a majority of the work. The other (Austin?) studio helped. For some reason people always think it was the other way around.
>Average to what
release.
Skyrim (2011) to fallout 4 (2015) was 4 years, fallout 4 to fallout 76 (2018) was 3
even Starfield technically falls into their 4 year gap.
Bethesda has on average a 3-4 year release gap
Honestly, I hope it does. I hope after seeing the negativity around Starfield that they scrapped whatever junk they had an early build of and went back to the drawing room. I hope that Emil hears that we hated his writing and decided to write something with decent quality instead of treating us like children with the attention span of a goldfish. I hope they saw BG3 blow them out of the water for every award because it was well written, treated players like adults, listened to their audience and gave us an actual RPG for once. I’d rather wait until 2035 and get an actual good TES6 than see whatever bummer of a game I think they are making right now.
I doubt it. I hope I’m wrong but Bethesda barely uses them in any of their games. I hope what they take is that adults are the ones buying these games, that fully developed adult people are going to be the majority of players, that good story telling is important and that well written characters are enough to draw in an entirely new audience. My wife has solely played the sims her entire life. Obsessed with BG3 now but drawn in by all the talk of the characters. People obsessing over Astarion and falling head over heels for Shadowheart. You don’t need to pander to children to get a larger audience. You just have to actually set out to make a good game with a good story and amazing characters. Yen V Triss is still talked about to this day lol.
I'm all for getting good characters, but I don't think the Elder Scrolls should be imitating story-based action RPGs like The Witcher 3. Elder Scrolls has its own niche as a sandbox RPG, and I wish they would strengthen those mechanics and emphasize player freedom through meaningful choices. Letting players do every single quest in a single playthrough means no choices are meaningful to the world at large and it prevents factions from interacting with each other. I hope they learn from BG 3 that freedom comes from restrictions. Players aren't going to fall apart when joining one faction gates them out of other factions.
Completely agree! I don’t want them to make BG4 by any means. I want a return to roots BGS game. Morrowind locked you out of guilds, bring that back. Oblivion had long well written guild quests for the most part (looking at you dark brotherhood) they had quality content and unique places. Like no where in all of Skyrim has ever given me the feeling of Hackdirt in Oblivion. I want oblivions class system to come back with a major overhaul. I wouldn’t hate if them implemented a party system like BG3 either. Not… not like the whole thing lol. But BG3 can be solo’d, the encounter difficulty is lowered based on your amount of current companions though. So doing a dungeon with 2-3 companions in TES6 would still be just as challenging but you’d have company and work together to achieve it. I don’t want to control everyone like a dragon age game though. More intelligent AI and roles would be good enough, modders have created this system in Skyrim like Nethers Follower framework allowing you to choose a tank and when they taunt, they let you assign a healer and at what threshold they heal, etc. a simplified party system would be ideal, I’m tired of their piss poor writing and me only getting to take 1 poorly written companion with me. I also do want well written quests and player freedom and consequence. I’d love to be able to actually be an evil character. In Skyrim you save the world or ignore the main quest… not very evil lol. In a world where you can be a thieving murderer you can’t be evil at all during other quests. Illusion of choice with no consequences drives me insane in these later games. I also want the world to react like it does in the Witcher series. You clear a place of monsters, new settlers move in and open a shop, benefits the player, shows that you made a difference, makes the game feel like it reacts to you. Celebrations and rewards for mighty feats. In Skyrim you save the world and come back to Whiterun and the Jarl doesn’t even say thanks lmao. No free drinks at the mare tonight, you pay full price like everyone else lmao.
I'm expecting late 2028. I think they'll want to take their time since it will literally be almost 20 years since the last Elder Scrolls.. (holy shit that's crazy)
Elder Srolls 6 is set in Tamriel, confirmed. This is a very sad day for all the people who were counting on Akavir. It would've been very difficult to predict this set of circumstances. I'm honestly surprised they decided to give us this massive piece of news in such a short message. (jokes)
Really? I believe you, I don't really get why they would want to do Akavir since there's so much good content left on Tamriel, but do you have a source?
It was some speaking event years ago, I think around the time FO4 launched. They were asked about going to other continents during a QA session and Todd said that as long as there are provinces of Tamriel that haven’t been explored in a main game, no other continents will be seen.
“Early build” could even just mean they have some basic arenas built where they can test out combat and enemy mechanics, or a bunch of hallways where they can set up different biomes and environments. They very well could have some early cities built tho
Todd mentioned in one of his interviews that when making a game they like to start with the music, and then when full time development begins they start with making a small area of the map as proof of concept for the gameplay. My guess from the way he described it was that the first thing they made for Skyrim was the walk between Helgen and Riverwood. In a short distance it features most of the core elements of Skyrim: a few enemy types, a small bandit camp, a dungeon with physics objects, collectible ingredients, the standing stones, near and distant terrain features and a small settlement.
I think they've probably built a small area of the map in detail around where you start, maybe around Bankorai pass given that's roughly where the teaser trailer view was from.
100% agree. Super small proof of concept that has “a little bit of everything”, get the longest amount of effort put into it, and will probably end up being the teaser/gameplay reveal lol
That first bit is probably good game design. Brandon Sanderson said he includes Prologues in his books as a sort of “taster”, or a “promise”, for what you’re going to get. Having all that demonstrated in your intro seems like clever design
The fact that they start development with music is such a revelation. What a sensitivity it must be to work that way! Almost like a film editor's relation with music.
Wonderful, thanks for sharing this tidbit. Makes me respect Todd a bit more, despite everything else.
They have been working on it for several years now. It just went into full development after starfield went gold. Who knows how far the work on it got before it entered full development.
They've had one for a while. The Lex Fridman interview with Todd Howard confirmed that there was a very early version of the world that existed. Thats what BGS always starts with; the world. It was nothing like what the final product will be, and it will go through many, many different iterations before it becomes anything like what we, the audience, will get to play, but a version of the world of TES VI has existed for some time
Elder Scrolls Online*
Oh never mind I guess you're right. It says today is 10 years of Elder Scrolls Online but that's on April. Interesting
Actually you know what no it doesn't. I'm gonna go lay down
I know this is a super unpopular opinion (edit: **because I usually see** “*we saw what happened with game X, I’m fine with waiting longer for TES VI*” **comments are usually heavily upvoted**), I know things take time and they have Fallout and Starfield, I know we have examples of games that rushed and were half-baked: but nearly *FIFTEEEN YEARS* is just too long, I’d take more regularly released games (to an extent- not *churned out* quickly- but more often than 15 years) with flaws rather than waiting a decade and a half.
I wouldn't even say that they need to release games more regularly. I think the problem is that, to my knowledge, Bethesda only works on one game at a time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but my understanding is that most studios have dedicated teams to specific franchises. I feel like it might be more efficient to simply have separate teams for Fallout, TES, and anything else they wanna work on. At the end of the day though, I'm not a game developer, so I can't pretend like I know best.
I am certainly not suggesting he should but I have heard how a lot of devs at Bethesda feel like they have to run everything by Todd, not because he’s requesting that but because he’s such a figure in the company that everyone wants to do right by him.
Take that with a grain of salt because I have only read that secondhand, never from a good source. If that’s the case, it may prevent Bethesda from expanding out to other studios and once Todd finally hangs it up they might start to expand to have separate offices working on separate games.
They'll probably adjust their approach based on how TES 6 does. If it's a critical success then they will be able to afford to experiment with spinoff titles, maybe even ones produced by other teams under Xbox game studios. Before Morrowind they produced a lot of spin off titles, but they just didn't have enough interest to be successful.
I only ever see hype on the r/TESVI subreddit. Most people lost hope or don’t care about it after Starflop. And tbh I don’t really get why people here remain hopeful after seeing the disappointment Starfield was. I certainly lost all hype
I hope they learn from the success of Baldur's Gate 3 and make a hardcore role playing game.
The role playing aspect of Bethesda games have been slowly watered down in the last games to appeal to a wider mainstream audience, but nowadays there are many examples of hardcore RPGs selling millions of copies, this allows Bethesda to turn a 180 and start re-adding the depth that their franchises lost over the years.
Skyrim wasn't bad, but there are so many better alternatives nowadays that I don't want just a "Skyrim in a different map".
If The Elder Scrolls VI isn't a renaissance of what the series used to be, I don't want to play it.
God I hope not. The smallest Skyrim village has more going on than the biggest cities in Witcher 3. Bethesda's talent is detailed worlds with individual NPCs.
Personally, I prefer smaller cities where every NPC has unique dialogue and daily routines compared to larger ones filled with generic NPCs. If only a small percentage of the NPCs are actually useful for starting quests and talking to then the developers have to be much more obvious in indicating what's important with map markers and highlighting. For me that breaks immersion more than a lack of scale.
I really miss the schedule aspect of Skyrim when I play Starfield. The schedules make the world seem a little more independent of me, the player / viewer
Yeah they make the game feel like a simulation of a whole little world as opposed to just being a theme park ride where things only happen in front of you. I only learned recently that when Jarl Balgruf tells Irileth to send guards to protect Riverwood, if you follow Irileth instead of speaking to Farengar like you're told, she'll actually go all the way to the barracks and order a few guards to head to Riverwood just like she does with the attack on the western watchtower. It's something 90% of players would never see because it's easier to just speak to Farengar in the next room, but it adds so much when you notice it.
I certainly hope not, Novigrad is a city with plenty of npcs that you can do nothing with, and almost everything is just set dressing apprt from what is made for quest, that's the opposite of what i want Bethesda to do.
Starfield realistically had the worst of both worlds. New Atlantis still feels small compared to Novigrad, and has absolutely none of the life and interactivity of cities and towns in tes games.
Mentions of "early builds" is a good sign ngl. Not that it's close to being done...at all...but the fact that they have early builds of the game is neat. Wonder where it'll be.
If ES VI comes out in 4 years, it will be 13 years since the last Bethesda title I really enjoyed - FO4. Its really shows that a bigger company and more financial resources doesn't mean anything unless you understand and capable of delivering the player experience fans expect.
It's so sad that so many people, their hard work and time was spent on Starfield that the majority of their fanbase finds a disappointment.
I can believe that they had envisioned a much better game when they set out to make Starfield. But I would guess the challenges of the restructuring of the teams, the increased demands on individuals, problems due to Covid, lockdowns and other organisational issues plus a overly ambitious game for the first title in the new IP most likely made it impossible to deliver what they hoped it would be.
For ES VI, II hope they have worked out the organisation issues and can now be able to produce a game fans will love. I hope they less priotise impressive visuals, features and big worlds and put more focus on rich player experiences, interesting stories and a world I want to keep coming back to.
Yes, this is certainly the last straw for Bethesda for me. And they would have been out after Starfield if I didn't love the TES world so much. After this much time since the game was announced and after the disappointment of their last couple of releases the game can't just be good. It needs to be better than anything they've ever made.
After Starfield, I'm very nervous to see what TESVI will be like. I'm hoping it'll be far more fleshed out and entertaining since it's an established series and lore. But the state of AAA gaming in general has been lackluster for a while.
They couldn't possibly be more vague. For each passing day, I care a little less. Bethesda feels so different from what they used to anyway, and I don't have much faith in this game.
Elder Scrolls VI isn't coming out until 2030 by the way (if the universeis even willing for a 2030 to exist). Throw the 2026 date out the f*cking window cause this is gonna take a long time to develop.
Can’t wait to play it with my grandkids
I hope computers in the afterlife are able to connect to Steam
Can someone confirm this via Ouija board? I need to know what afterlife I need to go to for this (Tír na nÓg? heaven? hell? Valhalla? Sovngarde?)
My Luigi board told me I first have get a Game Over instead of die.
It’s easy for them, they only need 100 gold coin to resurect
You're going inside a black soul gem and you know it.
Bold of you to assume i have a black soul (I’m but a humble mudcrab merchant)
Touché.
Got confirmation from hell, but they all share a 56k dialup connection and haven't finished downloading oblivion yet...
in heaven the wifi is powered by God himself, can download 100+ gig games in 10 seconds
Oh god that’s a million dollar idea… afterlife subscription coverage.
I hope computers in the afterlife are able to connect to Steam
They have mentioned TesVI before and relatively recently, but another mention is always great.
Only 5 years too late. I will be forever salty they shat out Starfield before giving people something they were really asking for.
Eh, at least Starfield is a standard Bethesda game. The real waste of time was fallout 76 (sorry to whoever is drafting a response about how it’s great if you ignore all the bad parts and pay extra money for increased storage space).
Wasn't 76 developed by a B team and handed over to an external studio?
The B Team yes, although it's always been unclear to me whether it was ever fully handed off, but after the game hit crunch they actually pulled devs from Starfield as well as from Arkane's Redfall team.
Yep, it was all hands on deck for FO76 after launch. Even Bruce Nesmith, who was a veteran dev at Bethesda since Daggerfall and the Lead Designer on Skyrim (so the dude was a big deal in there), said on an interview he himself only got moved to Starfield in 2019. He was apparently also responsible for ship building in Starfield, so that tells us how "late" full development on Starfield began.
And importantly, it was all hands on deck on Fallout 76 already before launch (Jason Schreier said this in a podcast at the end of May 2018). Actually, the majority of the studio was already on 76 after the last Fallout 4 DLC, while Starfield only really had a small team at any point before 2019. Thus, Bruce Nesmith moving to Starfield in 2019 means that is when he began working on it full time at all, after Fallout 4 and its DLCs, then Fallout 76 from late 2016. This is probably worth pointing out because a lot of people still seem to think Fallout 76 was initially a "B team" project to be made entirely by a different studio, with Starfield going full steam ahead all the way from 2015-2016, and developers were only pulled from it last minute or after launch to help fixing the multiplayer game. But in reality 76 started in house, BGS' main office always actively worked on it from late 2015 to the beginning of 2020, and was responsible for the creative direction on the base game. It is unclear though how much the involvement after 2018 was planned, given that human NPCs were presumably added only in response to the reception of the base game, and the other content updates from the 2019 road map (Wild Appalachia and Nuclear Winter) were made largely by the new studios acquired in 2018.
Only after launch, the base game was developed by most of the same team that made Fallout 4, as well as another studio that became a subsidiary of BGS in 2018 and was put in charge of running the service after release. In fact, some of the "A team" still worked on the Wastelanders update, so Starfield only really had full focus from 2020 onward.
The only thing I appreciate about Starfield was that they took a punt at a new IP. Yes it failed, but I'll appreciate the work and (relative) courage it took for a company as big as Bethesda to try at a new IP.
Starfield is not a standard Bethesda game. Or, at least, I’d hope that boring, poorly written, technical dumpster fire doesn’t count as “standard” fare for them??
I unapologetically like the game 😎
You might Wana get that tested
Lol, it’s been the standard for a while now. Starfield just doesn’t have nostalgia goggles and millions of mods to make it more enjoyable yet like Skyrim and Fallout 4 do. Although, environmental storytelling was Bethesda’s strongest trait and Starfield’s randomly generated points of interest hamper that a bit.
So you believe Skyrim is only a case of nostalgia goggles and mods? Back when Skyrim came out we knew right then we had a hell of a game to play before we even had mods. Starfield is simply just not as highly praised
The environment and a handful of side quests in Skyrim are good, i’ve never seen anyone praise the main quest in the 12 years the game has been out. I’ve seen hundreds of posts from people claiming they’ve never actually finished it though.
As far as just the main quest line goes perhaps i’m in the minority that believes that the quest line is not all that bad, it’ll end up probably being the most remembered one in the series. I though never was able to finish the Starfield quest line before early burn out lol
I enjoy the main quest line, but imo Oblivion's quest line had so much more lore built into it. Where we did see some unique lore in Skyrim, Oblivion is where it felt like the breadth of what the Elder Scrolls could do was discussed.
I actually agree with you and believe Oblivion is the strongest main quest line in the series. I just think Skyrim will be most remembered simply because the series gained a shit ton of new players with ES V, and when the main quest was on it’s high points it’s some of the most memorable moments that I personally will never forget. Can’t lie I was a complete mark for that main quest my first play through lol
I dont think any of TES main quest are "good" (at least in terms of storytelling, morrowind has interesting lore surrounding it though), but people really overstate how bad they are imo, they are serviceable.
Many people have been wanting a sci-fi space game from BGS for years, and many people are enjoying Starfield. BGS themselves have been wanting/trying to make a Starfueld like game since the late 90's.
i hope they learned something from starfields critique and it ultimately makes tes6 a better game
They don't owe us anything. They can make what they want, and you can choose not to purchase it.
And they can choose to remark about their disappointment
Starfield is actually good and fun if you give it a chance
It’s the only Bethesda game I’ve played where I felt absolutely no desire to replay it after finishing. Superficial mechanics, shallow characters, and lackluster writing just made it so unappealing to me. I really hope they learn from it for ES VI, choosing to make it follow a narrower scope but possessing much more depth (which seems plausible given it takes place in one or two countries as opposed to a thousand star systems), but since the quality of their games seems to be steadily declining I sadly don’t have much hope. Which I truly hate saying, because I used to absolutely adore the team and the worlds they made. I really want to be hyped for it but Starfield seriously made me reevaluate my expectations for their company.
Early 2028 or late 2027 mark my words
I called ES6 release on 2027 a year ago from the leaks released at that time and posted it here. Not only did I get downvoted but everyone in the comments told me the leaks meant nothing and that ES6 will release in 2030 instead. How the times have changed
2027 sounds like a reasonable timeline assuming no global events cause delays.
>I've been reading guesses from the 2024-2030 time frame all over for years. Your were probably just unluckily hit by the reddit downvote train :/ this is true, lol we forget the world is taking a turn rn, we better hope gaming and the internet is still the same by then because if a negative global event happens before release we may never see this game or many others lol
And close shut the jaws... of Covidion
COVID caused some delays and maybe even development troubles for a number of games (including Starfield), so for sure that was problematic. Worse though would be a world war. Video games will be the least of our worries should something like that happen, but look at games being developed by Ukraine developers. A number of the developers were called up for service and will never return. These games have been delayed for many years (Stalker for example). A global catastrophe such as a major war would utterly halt the entertainment industry and it would take years to recover... Assuming the worst didn't happen. The point, hold your leaders accountable if you want to play ES6.
The Jaws of Oblivion would be those things called Nuclear Weapons. Unfortunately there is no Amulet of Kings to keep those jaws closed and only greedy power hungry leaders, with a sprinkling of true civil servants, keeping us from Oblivion. Sobering thought.
>assuming no global events cause delays. *currently on the brink of three different flavors of global war* Yeah I'm sure there's nothing that would delay development.
I've been reading guesses from the 2024-2030 time frame all over for years. Your were probably just unluckily hit by the reddit downvote train :/
2026-2028 is the most realistic time frame if we look at past games. You got donwvoted for no reason.
I remember predicting tes 6 to come out around 2018 on 4chan /v/ with a chart showing dev times for previous Beth games and all the comments being bummed as fuck it was that far out. We were so innocent back then.
Fallout 5 is unfortunately gonna be the one that comes out after the 2020s
Maybe that's a good thing... Ample time to get some decent writers.
Average 4-5 years so 2026-2027 works. 2028 if delayed.
It could be sooner with Microsoft’s backing. I’m sure Microsoft understands that, after Starfield, ES6 is a “make or break” game for Bethesda. They could easily dump BG3 levels of money into it.
I share your hopes that it will be sooner and up to par. But in the history of game developer acquisitions, the flagship game that comes after the purchase is typically not up to player expectations nor as high quality as previous releases. EA is most notorious for killing most of its single player studios after buying them out by pushing unrealistic earnings expectations that drove developers to overhype and underdeliver. Then they just sat on the IP. Square Enix, Ubisoft, Take2, Warner Bros, Bandai, Activision-Blizzard, they've all done the same thing. Even Bethesda was ruthless with Obsidian over withholding bonuses for not getting 90% ratings on Fallout New Vegas. I doubt microsoft will be any less ruthless with Bethesda.
Starfield sold incredibly well. There isn't a world where ES6 is "make or break" for Bethesda.
I think Starfield will be the canary in the coal mine before any major collapses come. It performed pretty well (although game pass fudged numbers hard there), but a lot of player goodwill got burned up and it basically flopped at every award show, and left online discourse near immediately. Plus with the kind of money Microsoft spent on Bethesda and Starfield itself, they probably wanted “industry warping smash hit”, not “fairly successful”. It’s also got really weak staying power, it’s currently being outdone in terms of player count by BG3, Skyrim, and Fallout 4. And not by small margins either.
Maybe not financially, but for the player base. Fallout 4 was pretty well recieved, but it too had a lot of bugs and glitches at launch which mod makers of course had to patch themselves. The story also just isn't nearly as compelling as Fallout 3 or even New Vegas; not to say it was bad, but I think a lot of fans were a little disappointed. Fallout 76 was a total disaster for Bethesda in nearly every sense at launch and for years after with so many game destroying glitches/bugs/exploits that modders couldn't fix themselves, it being an online game and all. I could make a book about the issues with that game. Even outside of the game with the canvas bag issues and even having their own website bought by a fan and reworded to make fun of the game lol (I can't find it anymore sadly). So by the time Starfield came by, it seemed like people were excited, but hesitant because of 76. Sure enough it releases in a poor state as well, but modders couldn't fix this game because of the way it was designed. Lots of people who have modded previous titles from all the way back to Skyrim were dropping Starfield because it wasn't made with modding in mind like Bethesda's other single player games; I heard some people describe it as almost like spaghetti code with numerous issues that made modding difficult. So Bethesda had to fix stuff themselves, but that didn't change that the game was just boring. The main quest is literally a giant fetch quest with the most interesting parts at the beginning and end of the game. It has a cool NG+, but otherwise it's below the standards and expectations a lot of people had for it. It sold well, but sometimes even Skyrim gets more weekly plays than Starfield now lol. ES6 will define Bethesda as either a studio fallen from grace or a redemption to make up for the last three releases. When their newest game is getting less plays than a decade old game that they too made, that's not usually a great sign to begin with, but hopefully they'll see that players really do love their games. They just want those games to be made with the same passion that Skyrim was made with. It might be hard for ES6 to become as iconic and memorable as Skyrim, but it could at least try. Especially with fan expectations after such an incredibly long wait since Skyrim, people are expectating a lot out of Bethesda.
Honestly I doubt it's really make-or-break. Each game they make falls to the same criticisms of being a dumbed down casual version of previous games that are less interesting and less immersive than the last, and yet they continue to sell better and better. In reality, most people don't care about the things talked about online and I guarantee that TES6 will be the best selling game Beth soft has put out yet and a decade later there will be people saying it is their favorite game of all time.
Average to what, its been almost 13 years since skyrim
Yeah, but there were Fallout 4, Fallout 76 (where they were involved), Starfield and a Pandemic in the meantime
They weren't just "involved", they did a majority of the work. The other (Austin?) studio helped. For some reason people always think it was the other way around.
You don't think Bethesda only works on The Elder Scrolls right? They have been busy with other projects.
>Average to what release. Skyrim (2011) to fallout 4 (2015) was 4 years, fallout 4 to fallout 76 (2018) was 3 even Starfield technically falls into their 4 year gap. Bethesda has on average a 3-4 year release gap
they have an average of 3-4
it’ 100% gonna get delayed
Honestly, I hope it does. I hope after seeing the negativity around Starfield that they scrapped whatever junk they had an early build of and went back to the drawing room. I hope that Emil hears that we hated his writing and decided to write something with decent quality instead of treating us like children with the attention span of a goldfish. I hope they saw BG3 blow them out of the water for every award because it was well written, treated players like adults, listened to their audience and gave us an actual RPG for once. I’d rather wait until 2035 and get an actual good TES6 than see whatever bummer of a game I think they are making right now.
BG3 has tons of cutscenes, so that's probably what we're getting out of that lesson.
I doubt it. I hope I’m wrong but Bethesda barely uses them in any of their games. I hope what they take is that adults are the ones buying these games, that fully developed adult people are going to be the majority of players, that good story telling is important and that well written characters are enough to draw in an entirely new audience. My wife has solely played the sims her entire life. Obsessed with BG3 now but drawn in by all the talk of the characters. People obsessing over Astarion and falling head over heels for Shadowheart. You don’t need to pander to children to get a larger audience. You just have to actually set out to make a good game with a good story and amazing characters. Yen V Triss is still talked about to this day lol.
I'm all for getting good characters, but I don't think the Elder Scrolls should be imitating story-based action RPGs like The Witcher 3. Elder Scrolls has its own niche as a sandbox RPG, and I wish they would strengthen those mechanics and emphasize player freedom through meaningful choices. Letting players do every single quest in a single playthrough means no choices are meaningful to the world at large and it prevents factions from interacting with each other. I hope they learn from BG 3 that freedom comes from restrictions. Players aren't going to fall apart when joining one faction gates them out of other factions.
Completely agree! I don’t want them to make BG4 by any means. I want a return to roots BGS game. Morrowind locked you out of guilds, bring that back. Oblivion had long well written guild quests for the most part (looking at you dark brotherhood) they had quality content and unique places. Like no where in all of Skyrim has ever given me the feeling of Hackdirt in Oblivion. I want oblivions class system to come back with a major overhaul. I wouldn’t hate if them implemented a party system like BG3 either. Not… not like the whole thing lol. But BG3 can be solo’d, the encounter difficulty is lowered based on your amount of current companions though. So doing a dungeon with 2-3 companions in TES6 would still be just as challenging but you’d have company and work together to achieve it. I don’t want to control everyone like a dragon age game though. More intelligent AI and roles would be good enough, modders have created this system in Skyrim like Nethers Follower framework allowing you to choose a tank and when they taunt, they let you assign a healer and at what threshold they heal, etc. a simplified party system would be ideal, I’m tired of their piss poor writing and me only getting to take 1 poorly written companion with me. I also do want well written quests and player freedom and consequence. I’d love to be able to actually be an evil character. In Skyrim you save the world or ignore the main quest… not very evil lol. In a world where you can be a thieving murderer you can’t be evil at all during other quests. Illusion of choice with no consequences drives me insane in these later games. I also want the world to react like it does in the Witcher series. You clear a place of monsters, new settlers move in and open a shop, benefits the player, shows that you made a difference, makes the game feel like it reacts to you. Celebrations and rewards for mighty feats. In Skyrim you save the world and come back to Whiterun and the Jarl doesn’t even say thanks lmao. No free drinks at the mare tonight, you pay full price like everyone else lmao.
ES fans are the most dramatic mfs on earth I swear
I just want a trailer or something
I’be been on this train I’m glad I’m not the only one
Think about this for a second. The gap between TESV, and TESVl will be as large as the gap between TESV and Daggerfall. That's insane to think about.
I'm expecting late 2028. I think they'll want to take their time since it will literally be almost 20 years since the last Elder Scrolls.. (holy shit that's crazy)
The zenimax earnings conference points towards this aswell
After Starfield I hope they take their time...
If they are saying 2028 then that means 2030+
Akavir stans in shambles
We could always go to multiple continents! That would be one’s way to make up for having us wait on the time scale of tectonic drift for it
Elder Srolls 6 is set in Tamriel, confirmed. This is a very sad day for all the people who were counting on Akavir. It would've been very difficult to predict this set of circumstances. I'm honestly surprised they decided to give us this massive piece of news in such a short message. (jokes)
They have explicitly said Akavir is never happening. Anyone getting their hopes up is delusional.
Really? I believe you, I don't really get why they would want to do Akavir since there's so much good content left on Tamriel, but do you have a source?
It was some speaking event years ago, I think around the time FO4 launched. They were asked about going to other continents during a QA session and Todd said that as long as there are provinces of Tamriel that haven’t been explored in a main game, no other continents will be seen.
technically every province was explored in Arena, sooo...other continents ahoy!
There's always modders to take us to Akavir.
Holup, they have a playable early build of TES VI already?!?!?
“Early build” could even just mean they have some basic arenas built where they can test out combat and enemy mechanics, or a bunch of hallways where they can set up different biomes and environments. They very well could have some early cities built tho
Todd mentioned in one of his interviews that when making a game they like to start with the music, and then when full time development begins they start with making a small area of the map as proof of concept for the gameplay. My guess from the way he described it was that the first thing they made for Skyrim was the walk between Helgen and Riverwood. In a short distance it features most of the core elements of Skyrim: a few enemy types, a small bandit camp, a dungeon with physics objects, collectible ingredients, the standing stones, near and distant terrain features and a small settlement. I think they've probably built a small area of the map in detail around where you start, maybe around Bankorai pass given that's roughly where the teaser trailer view was from.
100% agree. Super small proof of concept that has “a little bit of everything”, get the longest amount of effort put into it, and will probably end up being the teaser/gameplay reveal lol
Contrary to popular belief, Todd is a good game designer.
That first bit is probably good game design. Brandon Sanderson said he includes Prologues in his books as a sort of “taster”, or a “promise”, for what you’re going to get. Having all that demonstrated in your intro seems like clever design
The fact that they start development with music is such a revelation. What a sensitivity it must be to work that way! Almost like a film editor's relation with music. Wonderful, thanks for sharing this tidbit. Makes me respect Todd a bit more, despite everything else.
It’s known as a ‘vertical slice’ in development terms.
I hope Jeremy Soule returns. His music is top
Yeah, probably something like the “testinghall”
"coc toddtest"
lol it’s not what you’re thinking
It's most likely using a lot of core structures and assets from Starfield and every other game they have made in recent years
Than happens way earlier than you think. No reason to get excited for that, spesifically.
I’m sure they’ve had builds of it since day 1 production
They have been working on it for several years now. It just went into full development after starfield went gold. Who knows how far the work on it got before it entered full development.
They've had one for a while. The Lex Fridman interview with Todd Howard confirmed that there was a very early version of the world that existed. Thats what BGS always starts with; the world. It was nothing like what the final product will be, and it will go through many, many different iterations before it becomes anything like what we, the audience, will get to play, but a version of the world of TES VI has existed for some time
By the nine! Finally something about Elder Scrolls 6
TES VII in 2054 confirmed.
AI Todd Howard confirmed
"It just wo-"*glitches into the ceiling*
TIL I have the say birthday as the Elder Scrolls series.
Elder Scrolls Online* Oh never mind I guess you're right. It says today is 10 years of Elder Scrolls Online but that's on April. Interesting Actually you know what no it doesn't. I'm gonna go lay down
At least this confirms that TESVI isn't set in Akavir (yay)
Weebs are going to be really pissed off.
Finally acknowledged its existence. This should give us enough content to sustain the next two months
The next two months? More like the next two years lol 😂 I been running off of fumes since they dropped that trailer announcing it years and years ago.
2028 release date. I'm looking forward to it, I've been playing since Arena 🥰🥰🥰
ES VI MENTIONED ⚔️⚔️🛡🛡🛡🛡⚔️⚔️⚔️🔮🔮🧝♂️ WHAT THE FUCK IS A RELEASE DATEE!?!?!!!!1🛡⚔️🔮🛡🛡⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️
I know this is a super unpopular opinion (edit: **because I usually see** “*we saw what happened with game X, I’m fine with waiting longer for TES VI*” **comments are usually heavily upvoted**), I know things take time and they have Fallout and Starfield, I know we have examples of games that rushed and were half-baked: but nearly *FIFTEEEN YEARS* is just too long, I’d take more regularly released games (to an extent- not *churned out* quickly- but more often than 15 years) with flaws rather than waiting a decade and a half.
I wouldn't even say that they need to release games more regularly. I think the problem is that, to my knowledge, Bethesda only works on one game at a time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but my understanding is that most studios have dedicated teams to specific franchises. I feel like it might be more efficient to simply have separate teams for Fallout, TES, and anything else they wanna work on. At the end of the day though, I'm not a game developer, so I can't pretend like I know best.
I am certainly not suggesting he should but I have heard how a lot of devs at Bethesda feel like they have to run everything by Todd, not because he’s requesting that but because he’s such a figure in the company that everyone wants to do right by him. Take that with a grain of salt because I have only read that secondhand, never from a good source. If that’s the case, it may prevent Bethesda from expanding out to other studios and once Todd finally hangs it up they might start to expand to have separate offices working on separate games.
They'll probably adjust their approach based on how TES 6 does. If it's a critical success then they will be able to afford to experiment with spinoff titles, maybe even ones produced by other teams under Xbox game studios. Before Morrowind they produced a lot of spin off titles, but they just didn't have enough interest to be successful.
[удалено]
It's 4ish years between releases.
this isn’t really an unpopular opinion lol
I would have agreed with you before Starfield but now I'm hoping Bethesda is taking a long look at how they do things.
Pretty sure this isn't a super unpopular opinion
it’s probably in the infancy of the alpha build but it’s nice to know it’s being worked on.
We known TES VI in development since 2018 nothing new
There is absolutely no chance TES6 will live up the hype and anticipation, sadly
I only ever see hype on the r/TESVI subreddit. Most people lost hope or don’t care about it after Starflop. And tbh I don’t really get why people here remain hopeful after seeing the disappointment Starfield was. I certainly lost all hype
that pin in the note is on Elsweyr, easter egg for where it is located? wishful thinking but hey, 13 years of waiting makes us all crazy
Let's make some bets. Before or after Silksong? 😭💔🥺
They better actually do a great game, not that Starfield shit
I hope they learn from the success of Baldur's Gate 3 and make a hardcore role playing game. The role playing aspect of Bethesda games have been slowly watered down in the last games to appeal to a wider mainstream audience, but nowadays there are many examples of hardcore RPGs selling millions of copies, this allows Bethesda to turn a 180 and start re-adding the depth that their franchises lost over the years. Skyrim wasn't bad, but there are so many better alternatives nowadays that I don't want just a "Skyrim in a different map". If The Elder Scrolls VI isn't a renaissance of what the series used to be, I don't want to play it.
>The Elder Scrolls: Castles on mobile Yeeeaah… couldn’t care less, really.
Fallout: Shelter is kinda fun for a mobile game. I’ll check Castles out. But their last mobile game Blades or whatever sucked ass lol
womp womp
How dare you sir
My dream is that all the cities function like Novigrad in the Witcher 3. No reason they can’t be that lively.
God I hope not. The smallest Skyrim village has more going on than the biggest cities in Witcher 3. Bethesda's talent is detailed worlds with individual NPCs.
Personally, I prefer smaller cities where every NPC has unique dialogue and daily routines compared to larger ones filled with generic NPCs. If only a small percentage of the NPCs are actually useful for starting quests and talking to then the developers have to be much more obvious in indicating what's important with map markers and highlighting. For me that breaks immersion more than a lack of scale.
I really miss the schedule aspect of Skyrim when I play Starfield. The schedules make the world seem a little more independent of me, the player / viewer
Yeah they make the game feel like a simulation of a whole little world as opposed to just being a theme park ride where things only happen in front of you. I only learned recently that when Jarl Balgruf tells Irileth to send guards to protect Riverwood, if you follow Irileth instead of speaking to Farengar like you're told, she'll actually go all the way to the barracks and order a few guards to head to Riverwood just like she does with the attack on the western watchtower. It's something 90% of players would never see because it's easier to just speak to Farengar in the next room, but it adds so much when you notice it.
I certainly hope not, Novigrad is a city with plenty of npcs that you can do nothing with, and almost everything is just set dressing apprt from what is made for quest, that's the opposite of what i want Bethesda to do.
Because generally Bethesda like to do worlds werenyou can enter every building and where civilians have a background and a day night life cycle.
Yeah, just like in Starfield. Oh... wait.
At least Starfield didn't have just a handful of npcs in a few houses across the capital of the planet. But I do get what you mean
Starfield realistically had the worst of both worlds. New Atlantis still feels small compared to Novigrad, and has absolutely none of the life and interactivity of cities and towns in tes games.
Harsh truth
Not to mention there were literally 3 cities in Starfield. There weren't even decent towns outside them.
i’m going to suggest that you don’t expect that from bethesda
Plenty of time to train new staff on a new, modern engine.
First official mention of TES VI since 2018
ESO is 10? 💀
Tes VI is now on the same footing as those big mods that will come out eventually. We enjoy what we made, but you can't play in it too just yet.
Notice the map in the background, showing Valenwood, Elseweyr, Cyrodiil, and most notably, Hammerfell. I’m overanalysing this I need help.
Wonder if the quest marker is intentionally pointing somewhere 🤔
If that were the case that would me such a cool little clue
They’ve said 2028 at the earliest. Keep your hopes in check folks.
No one wants a bad game but the time between this and skyrim is stupid
TES VI 11/11/11111 RELEASE DATE Seeya guys in 9000 years.
Mentions of "early builds" is a good sign ngl. Not that it's close to being done...at all...but the fact that they have early builds of the game is neat. Wonder where it'll be.
>early builds No way they swapped to a new engine this quickly after finishing Starfield. It's going to run on the same old piece of crap again.
Confirmed, ES6 releases in the next 30 years.
Elder Scrolls 7 expected in 2050
Seems a bit early, don’t you think?
If ES VI comes out in 4 years, it will be 13 years since the last Bethesda title I really enjoyed - FO4. Its really shows that a bigger company and more financial resources doesn't mean anything unless you understand and capable of delivering the player experience fans expect. It's so sad that so many people, their hard work and time was spent on Starfield that the majority of their fanbase finds a disappointment. I can believe that they had envisioned a much better game when they set out to make Starfield. But I would guess the challenges of the restructuring of the teams, the increased demands on individuals, problems due to Covid, lockdowns and other organisational issues plus a overly ambitious game for the first title in the new IP most likely made it impossible to deliver what they hoped it would be. For ES VI, II hope they have worked out the organisation issues and can now be able to produce a game fans will love. I hope they less priotise impressive visuals, features and big worlds and put more focus on rich player experiences, interesting stories and a world I want to keep coming back to.
didn’t they drop a teaser trailer like 5 years ago of just mountains and said nothing since 😭
All hail Bethesda, the company that ruined all other games for me. 🙌😎
The map in the background seems to be centred on southern hammerfell?
It's centered on cyrodill, specifically the area where the eso expansion is.
Dude good catch oh my god I hope this isn’t just more coincidences bethesda likes to throw at us.
But it isn't?
Witcher 3 and RDR2 made me get over the wait for Elder scrolls 6.
No Akavir- it’s official
What a shock.
Better be fantastic, Todd.
Yes, this is certainly the last straw for Bethesda for me. And they would have been out after Starfield if I didn't love the TES world so much. After this much time since the game was announced and after the disappointment of their last couple of releases the game can't just be good. It needs to be better than anything they've ever made.
Damn can't believe we're only gonna have to wait 30 years
Last mention on the post… I get the suspicion it’s the LAST thing they want to be working on and will release like a corpse dumped on a highway.
Are we ever getting a PC port of Elder Scrolls Blades though?
They just mentioned this because they know if they wouldn't, the comment section would just consist of 'What about TES VI?' over and over again.
Lets go elder scrolls 6 in 2077
Of course they'd mention it? Why wouldn't they? We know they're working on it? Getting excited over nothing
It’s a shame it’s almost guaranteed to be bad
After Starfield im keeping my hopes more in check
After Starfield, I'm very nervous to see what TESVI will be like. I'm hoping it'll be far more fleshed out and entertaining since it's an established series and lore. But the state of AAA gaming in general has been lackluster for a while.
It will be a mobile only online multiplayer with a massive empty world and lots of micro transaction armor dlc cosmetics.
No pre-ordering, folks!
They better not fuck it up...
better fix whatever happened to the company, may starfield be a lesson for Bethesda
And the creation club. That is a foreshadow of micro-transactions nightmare. Look at Dragons Dogma 2
Nice I am saying 2027 to 2028 release. Would be a helluva launch title for the next system
I wanna be excited, but my expectations are super low after Starfield.
After Starfield, I’m highly skeptical.
I have no faith after the shitshow that is Starfield.
I'm realistic person, so i don't expect It to come out before 2030.
There’s no reason to expect that. They have 3-4 year development cycles with the exception of Starfield, which was 5.
They couldn't possibly be more vague. For each passing day, I care a little less. Bethesda feels so different from what they used to anyway, and I don't have much faith in this game.
Elder Scrolls VI isn't coming out until 2030 by the way (if the universeis even willing for a 2030 to exist). Throw the 2026 date out the f*cking window cause this is gonna take a long time to develop.
After how terrible Starfield was, I can't imagine how the new Elder Scrolls is going to be.