When will The Elder Scrolls 6 be released? There is no official answer to that yet. However, it is already possible to speculate on a release date.
Skyrim has been around for a few years now, and fans are eagerly awaiting The Elder Scrolls 6. But when is a release of the already announced Bethesda role-playing game realistic? We collect the most important information for you and explain why we still have to wait quite a while for The Elder Scrolls 6.
The Elder Scrolls 6: Everything about the potential release
Early announcement, long wait.
The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced with a compact teaser back at E3 2018. Since then, it has become quite quiet again about the successor to Skyrim. And even before that, Bethesda boss Todd Howard (via IGN) warned that the game is still “a long way off. ”
Starfield, Fable and Avowed before The Elder Scrolls 6
Later, Bethesda fleshed out this vague release info: In May 2020, Bethesda’s vice president of PR and marketing Pete Hines said that the sci-fi role-playing game Starfield was currently a priority in development.
In an interview with IGN, Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer also stated that Elder Scrolls 6 will be released a while after the role-playing games Fable and Avowed.
When Starfield will be released:Starfield is scheduled for release on November 11, 2022 for PC and Xbox Series X/S. This suggests that active development of The Elder Scrolls 6 will not really pick up until after that date.
When Fable and Avowed will be released: Both games have no known release date yet. The Obsidian role-playing game Avowed is rumoured to be released in early 2023, the new Fable possibly even later. This means that Elder Scrolls 6 will be released in 2023 at the very earliest, more likely in 2024. But don’t get excited too early, we estimate that it will take much longer.
The Elder Scrolls 6 2021 in very early stages
Elders Scrolls 2021 is still in its very early stages: This conclusion is consistent with Todd Howard’s statement to Telegraph in late June 2021. Here, the Bethesda boss reveals that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still in the design phase at this point.
The term is not clearly defined, but in this case it presumably still means the planning phase, where the foundations for the game are being laid. The developers define the basic idea here, as well as key features, setting or even the target group, and then continue to sound out whether this concept can be realised at all, considering the ideas in relation to costs, time frame, effort, team size or even the technical conditions.
At least Howard talks specifically about the fact that they are currently working on the technology on which The Elder Scrolls 6 will be based: For both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda is using the new Creation Engine 2, a further development of the old in-house engine, which, according to Howard, will have to be tackled again for the latter role-playing game.
What conclusion does this suggest?
This design or planning stage is logically at the very beginning of the game’s development and only sets the broad framework. If one goes by Howard’s statements, pre-production will not start until the end of 2022 and then actual production again later. If Starfield is postponed, however, even this plan could be thrown into doubt.
It is not unusual for Bethesda to plan a new game while it is actively working on another: Skyim, for example, was already planned after the release of Oblivion in 2006, but was not actively developed until after the release of Fallout 3 in 2008.
After the release of Starfield, The Elder Scrolls should then – optimistically estimated – devour at least five more years of active development time, probably even more, since pre-production and production can logically take longer or shorter, depending on how quickly the project progresses and what obstacles the developers encounter.
After that, a testing and polishing phase is necessary. This could also take a considerable amount of time – after all, Bethesda is no stranger to problems with bugs and fine-tuning.
The production of current AAA games is generally becoming more and more complex and time-consuming, while role-playing games are even more demanding in terms of time and resources due to their size and scope.
Especially in view of the fact that, according to Bethesda, The Elder Scrolls 6 will be “playable for at least ten years” – which admittedly also worked for Skyrim, but could also refer to a post-launch content plan that is more extensive than its predecessor. There was already talk of a “possible online component” in advance.
When is a release of The Elder Scrolls 6 realistic?
Release in the late 2020s at the earliest: Considering this, fans of the series should not expect a release of The Elder Scrolls 6 before 2027/28. In all likelihood, the eagerly awaited role-playing game will even have to wait a little longer.
But players of fantasy role-playing games need not necessarily despair. After all, we can expect comparable representatives of the genre in the coming years, such as Fable, Avowed, Dragon Age 4 or even Hogwarts Legacy.
And if you are explicitly longing for the typical chaotic Bethesda charm as far as role-playing worlds are concerned, there is also Starfield, if you want to wait for an excursion into science fiction – the first trailer alone entices with countless details and many clues that play perfectly into the hands of the developer’s proven formula. So the wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 will not be boring.
