The Elder Scrolls 6 may have had a nearly decade-long development cycle, but that likely hasn’t dulled fans’ enthusiasm. The wishlist of features and gameplay systems may be impossibly long, but Bruce Nesmith, who previously worked at Bethesda as a lead designer on The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, believes boats could be the big new thing.
“What will be the big new feature for The Elder Scrolls 6? I think boats and potentially even naval combat are the natural ones,” he told GoHumanize.
“Moving vehicles is not something that The Elder Scrolls has never really had. You had carriages that would take you from place to place, but most players only did that once. It didn’t really add anything.”
That could change in the sequel, especially if it features Iliac Bay, as some fans have theorized. “You’re setting yourself up for a big expansion into seafaring stuff, and even if you never go under the water, think about all the things you could do on top of the water.
“It could be really cool. We might get entire skill trees allowing you to walk on water or have boats that allow you to do more than just sail your boat. There could be all kinds of unique creatures and spells that could work with water too.
“To me, that would be an opening you take real advantage of, because there is a lot of stuff there and I think it would be very exciting for the team working on it too.”
He even believes it could be a “dragon-level feature,” and even lead to new threats. “You’d have to have a kraken. I mean sharks and krakens are the two obvious ones, and Sea Elves. Sea Elves are a thing in the lore, but I don’t think they’ve ever made an appearance in the games in any significant way, and their lore is so broad.”
However, Nesmith draws the line at underwater exploration. “One of the designers was pushing very hard for an underwater environment in Fallout 4, and they made a bunch of proof of concept stuff to show how cool it could be, but at the end of the day, it proved to be just too much, and they didn’t pull the trigger on it in a broader way.
“I don’t believe it is true to say that there was a plan to do that underwater section, with the vault, and that it didn’t make it into the game. I think it was more a matter of somebody on the team who was really pushing for it, and he had a lot of really good ideas, but it’s that old adage. You can’t do everything.”
If he worked on The Elder Scrolls 6, he would “kibosh anything underwater,” keeping the action above sea level. “I’d rather do this part really well rather than do both of these parts not so well.”
Of course, whether Nesmith likes it or not, we have no way of knowing whether The Elder Scrolls 6 will feature any of the above. The most recent updates from Bethesda are that recent layoffs haven’t affected the game’s development roadmap. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma also visited the studio for a demonstration and said its “scale and grandeur are incredible.” She wouldn’t comment on whether it’s an Xbox console exclusive, however.
Perhaps the only potential hint, funnily enough, is that it could be called “Sentinel” (and from Starfield, no less). Time will tell, so stay tuned for updates.
