While Fallout has seen a well-received spinoff in the form of Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda has never really allowed for a similar spinoff for its fantasy RPG series The Elder Scrolls. In an interview with FRVR, former loremaster for the franchise and co-lead on The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Kurt Kuhlmann, has explained that Bethesda has always been quite protective of The Elder Scrolls.
“The whole New Vegas thing did create this, at least the perception of this, ‘Who makes a better Fallout game?’ Oh, they should just give it to Obsidian’. There are the Obsidian, New Vegas people that think obviously New Vegas is way better, Obsidian is way better at making those games, and why don’t they just get Fallout altogether.”
Interestingly, franchise lead Todd Howard wanted to avoid comparisons like the ones between Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas with The Elder Scrolls franchise. Kuhlmann confirmed that, aside from The Elder Scrolls Online, Howard has continued to be protective of the fantasy franchise. As for whether the studio felt pressure to make a new entry while it was working on Starfield, Kuhlmann believes that the MMORPG “took the heat off” since it was at least “something with Elder Scrolls”.
“Todd, from my time there, he is very protective of it. I do think ESO took the heat off… There was a new Elder Scrolls product, and it was ongoing. It was creating new content constantly. There are a lot of people, I mean, I know the single-player people, I’m one of those people–but there are a lot of people to whom The Elder Scrolls is now ESO. That’s their experience with it. That’s what they love. That’s where they got their Elder Scrolls gaming experience, and that’s probably what they want more of.”
It is worth noting that the last mainline entry in the franchise was 2011’s The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, which has seen several re-releases across various platforms in the 15 years since its original release. In the meantime, Bethesda has worked on Fallout 4, Fallout 76, The Elder Scrolls Online, and Starfield.
Bethesda is currently working on The Elder Scrolls 6, and while the RPG still isn’t expected to be coming out any time soon, hype around it has already started to build up. Just last month, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma spoke about having played an early build of the title and said that “the scale and grandeur are incredible” and that “the story is even greater”. Along with this, Sharma also teased the official title of the game by calling it “The Elder Scrolls 6: ********”.
Sharma’s post kickstarted quite a bit of speculation among fans of The Elder Scrolls. Many also started looking at potential hints hidden throughout Starfield, such as the fact that the “Employee Number” for the protagonist in that game provides a hint that the word “Sentinel” might be important.
Currently, Bethesda hasn’t announced any release date for The Elder Scrolls 6, and rumors have indicated that it might still be at least two years away.
