While Bethesda might be taking its sweet time with the development of The Elder Scrolls 6, director Todd Howard isn’t too worried about showing more of the upcoming RPG since the company has many players also playing its other titles, like Skyrim and Fallout 76. As caught by GamesRadar, Howard spoke about this long development cycle during a roundtable interview, where he noted that, aside from Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, development times for games at Bethesda have typically been “pretty short”.
“I don’t want to count The Elder Scrolls 6,” he said, laughing. “Starfield was long. But other than that, they’re usually pretty short.” He went on to note that Starfield’s development time was anchored by the fact that it is a brand new IP rather than being a sequel to another long-running franchise. Much of the development time also happened to overlap with global pandemic-induced lockdowns, as well as Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda being completed.
At this point, thanks to the fact that games like The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and the Fallout series continue to be quite successful, Bethesda as a whole is in a good position. Interestingly, this has also brought on the added challenge for the studio since it now also has to make sure that players for these older titles continue to be engaged. “We also, again, have that benefit of having so many millions of people playing our other games that we’re actually trying to figure out how to serve those other audiences while we make a new one,” he said.
This means that Bethesda has had to grow out its development teams. “We sort of top out with partners, four or 500 people. That’s kind of like our peak,” said Howard. “We’re seeing that growth is slow for us, to be honest, compared to, I think maybe the rest of the industry, where we still want to be who we are and making a game.”
When it comes to making a game, Howard describes the process as revolving around long pre-production periods where the “a good kernel of a game” is fleshed out before development then continues. “We really want to get a good kernel of a game that we’re ready to then put more people on and start moving faster,” he explained. He also noted that the industry at large was struggling with the idea of when more money should start being invested in a project.
“It’s something a lot of people are struggling with,” he said. “Which is really, how much time and money can you invest… just pick a game that you have in mind. The industry is in a difficult spot, where can you, you know, what’s your confidence in that making any money, right? Because the expenses are high. So I think every studio’s dealing with that in their own way.”
In the same roundtable interview, Howard had also confirmed that the majority of developers at Bethesda Game Studios are working on The Elder Scrolls 6. “The majority of this building is working on The Elder Scrolls 6,” he said. “It’s amazing for us to come back to it. I gotta be honest, right? Being in that world after not developing in Elder Scrolls – it’s so different than Starfield, so different than Fallout – it feels great for us.”
