In news that is sure to disappoint every Nord at heart, Bethesda has confirmed that development on The Elder Scrolls 6 still hasn’t started.
Yet.
In an interview with Gameslice, Bethesda’s VP of marketing Pete Hines stated quite clearly that they are staying laser focused on current projects and that the next Elder Scrolls game will be "down the road... down the road."
"They have at least two major titles that they are working on before we're gonna get to Elder Scrolls 6," said Pete during the interview, referring to The Evil Within 2 and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
The only Elder Scrolls news on hand was work on bringing Skyrim to the Nintendo Switch, something that was known to be happening long before E3.
When pressed for any information on Elder Scrolls development, Pete remained close-lipped and confirmed that he can’t discuss it simply because it’s not anywhere on the development horizon.
Referring to the Bethesda development team, Pete said they’re “looking forward to talking about that stuff when we get to a point where we can really show what they're working on and not just speak to it, but 'here it is, here is exactly what it's kinda gonna be'."
Bethesda has a history of keeping their development plans close to their chest, especially when it comes to E3. Fallout 4, for example, was out the same year it was officially announced at 2016’s E3 conference. Compare that with Sony, who often announces games at E3 years before they’re actually set to release.
It’s a testament to Bethesda’s chops as a game developer that they see no need to hype games before they have anything worth presenting. Most other developers gleefully present trailers for games that are planned but have little actual development done other than concept art and maybe an outline of a story. Bethesda’s honesty sets it apart from the usual madness of E3.
That said, this is awful for fans of Skyrim, one of the best games of all time. Players will have to content themselves with retracing their steps in the North and maybe find a few places they missed on their first forays into the land of Tamriel.