Bethesda had a lot of its babies in the making to show at E3 this year, but perhaps the most premature of them was The Elder Scrolls VI. With their new release, Fallout 76, close on the horizon, the team will be putting full focus on its new sci-fi IP, Starfield.
In its current state, The Elder Scrolls VI might appear to be little more than a twinkle in Todd Howard’s eye. However, according to an interview with GameSpot, Todd and his team know the release date for the next entry.
In the interview, he described it as “in the concept and design [phase],” and when asked if he had a release date in mind, he said, “I do. I would be foolish to say it.”
Perhaps even more interesting than Todd and his team having a firm release date in mind is the generation that release date may fall in. In a GameSlice interview, he discussed the ambitions and technology needed to achieve a game worthy of previous entries in the series and suggested that might be on the next generation of consoles.
“We’ve obviously taken our time with The Elder Scrolls 6, as opposed to jumping right into it. We know what we want it to be, and that’s gonna take time, technology, other things that we need to build to to really pull it off. And that’s what that franchise deserves.”
In the interview, he suggested that the technology needed might not be capable of running on the current PS4 and Xbox One consoles. Further, he said that though Starfield is in a much further developed state, saying the game is playable and in full production, he also suggested that this game may not launch on current gen hardware.
The talk of next gen consoles might not be to suggest a Final Fantasy XV length development, as rumours of Sony working on its PS5 and Microsoft already announcing work on a new console could suggest the next generation of consoles will be sooner rather than later.
Bethesda Game Studio’s next release is the upcoming Fallout 76, launching on November 14th; it’s an online only multiplayer game and a prequel to the previous Fallout games.
