In an interview with Gamespot at PAX Australia, Bethesda's VP of Marketing and Communications Pete Hines took the chance to clarify that just because Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI have been announced alongside Fallout 76 during this year's E3 conference it doesn't mean they're coming in the next couple years, one after another.
[The Elder Scrolls VI] is big and it's ambitious, but also … the most important thing to underscore is that the timeline between products that you get from BGS is not any different than it has been historically just because we've talked about two games after Fallout 76. I try really hard to manage people's expectations. It's not like 'Fallout 76 this year, Starfield next year, and then The Elder Scrolls VI the year after.' The timeline isn't any different. What's different is just trying to be transparent and say, 'Don't freak out, the next thing we're doing is single-player [in Starfield], [and] we are making The Elder Scrolls VI.
Would it have been better if it was some years from now and we just go, 'Surprise, we're making a game called Starfield, and it's out X months later?' Yeah. For sure. But at the same time, there is also value in every day between there people aren't freaking out about us making Fallout 76 as an online-only game as a service and this is all they're ever making.
Take a deep breath; you're going to be OK. We're going to make some stuff you're really going to love.
Hines highlights that the timeline for the upcoming lineup from Bethesda Game Studios has not changed (despite the increased headcount after several studio acquisitions), therefore we'll have to wait a few years between each release as usual. Considering that Starfield will come next, The Elder Scrolls VI might not be launched before 2022 or 2023 at the earliest and that would be eleven or twelve years after Skyrim. Of course, in the meantime Bethesda isn't sitting on the IP at all as they launched The Elder Scrolls Online (which continues to be updated and recently got the Murkmire DLC) and The Elder Scrolls Legends. They're also working on the free-to-play Elder Scrolls Blades, due later this year on iOS devices and then later on other platforms as well.
Fallout 76, on the other hand, is coming out on November 14th. There's a beta test scheduled later today on Xbox One, while next week's sessions (due to include PC and PlayStation 4 users as well) have been detailed a few hours ago.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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