The Elder Scrolls VI

It's been nearly fifteen years since The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim took the gaming world by storm, and fans are still waiting for The Elder Scrolls VI. Skyrim redefined open world action RPG gameplay, achieving unanimous critical acclaim and commercial success. Last we heard, it had surpassed 60 million units sold in 2023.

Following its release, Bethesda Game Studios immediately started working on Fallout 4, which was also quite successful in its own right. After that, though, the studio decided to break its routine to work on something new: a multiplayer version of Fallout, which became Fallout 76.

It was just before the Fallout 76 reveal, during Bethesda's E3 2018 press conference, that Todd Howard came out to announce the studio's two following projects: a new sci-fi IP, Starfield, and The Elder Scrolls VI itself.

Howard would later say that he regretted announcing TES VI this early, but Bethesda wanted to reassure fans that it wasn't abandoning single player games or, indeed, the Elder Scrolls franchise. To this day, the E3 2018 teaser trailer remains the only one we've got; however, there have since been enough rumors and little tidbits of information to paint a picture of what's coming.

• Release Date and Platforms
• Genre, Setting, and Story
• Gameplay Features and Mechanics
• Tech and Specs

Release Date and Platforms

Back in 2023, a court document filed during the FTC v. Microsoft case revealed that Bethesda expected The Elder Scrolls VI to be released in "2026 or later". 2026 was already unrealistic back then: Starfield, their previous game, only launched on September 6, 2023, and Bethesda is known for focusing on a single main project at a time.

Indeed, Head of Publishing Pete Hines confirmed around Starfield's release date that the game was in "early development", having left the pre-production stage. As part of the aforementioned FTC v. Microsoft case, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer claimed in September 2023 that The Elder Scrolls VI was "at least five years away", though that was clearly a ballpark estimate. In March 2024, though, Bethesda revealed that early internal builds of the game were already being tested. In July 2025, Windows Central's Jez Corden heard that the game was in a "quite playable" state.

The latest official communication came in November 2025 from Howard himself, who preached patience and cautioned that The Elder Scrolls VI was still "a long way off", although he'd like the game to "magically appear" when the time is right, confirming his penchant for shorter marketing cycles. He just recently reiterated that point in March 2026, joking that he had never heard of the game. Realistically, the game won't be released before late 2027 or, more likely, somewhere in 2028, and a proper unveiling may come within six months of the launch date.

As for the platforms, back when it was being scrutinized for its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Bethesda owner Microsoft said the game "may only be released on PC and Xbox Series S and X". However, a lot has changed since then. Microsoft had shifted to a multiplatform strategy but may reconsider now, with the sweeping changes brought by Phil Spencer's successor, Asha Sharma. Ultimately, it seems unlikely Microsoft will keep a game of this magnitude off Sony's PlayStation consoles; Skyrim is estimated to have sold between 10 and 11 million units sold on the PlayStation ecosystem, after all. However, a timed exclusive is not out of the question.

Genre, Setting, and Story

Just like its predecessors, The Elder Scrolls 6 is an action role-playing game set in the fantasy world of Tamriel. Todd Howard has explicitly described it as a return to the "classic Bethesda" open-world RPG formula, comparing it directly to Oblivion and Skyrim rather than the more experimental Starfield or Fallout 76. In practical terms, this means a single, vast, continuous world, deeply interwoven faction questlines, and the kind of player-driven exploration that made Skyrim a cultural landmark.

No location has been officially confirmed. However, the overwhelming consensus among fans and analysts points to Hammerfell and/or High Rock, the two provinces flanking the Iliac Bay in northwestern Tamriel, as the most probable setting. The evidence is circumstantial but layered: the 2018 announcement teaser appears to depict coastal geography consistent with Hammerfell; a hidden sketch embedded in the Starfield reveal trailer at E3 2021 appeared to outline the borders of both provinces; and crucially, both regions were last explored in depth in The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall in 1996, making them long overdue for a modern revisit. Community confidence is high; an alternative wildcard theory suggests the game could venture to Akavir, the mysterious continent east of Tamriel never visited in a mainline entry, though this has little evidential backing.

Both prospective provinces carry strong narrative potential in the wake of Skyrim's events. Hammerfell, home of the Redguard people and their celebrated warrior tradition, broke away from the crumbling Empire after signing a separate peace with the Thalmor-aligned Aldmeri Dominion, setting up a geopolitical powder keg. High Rock, a province of feuding Breton kingdoms with deep ties to High Elf politics and home to the strategically vital Direnni Tower, sits at the frontier of that same conflict. This dovetails directly with what we know of the scrapped narrative ambitions for the game.

In January 2026, Kurt Kuhlmann (co-lead designer of Skyrim, Bethesda's longtime loremaster, and a twenty-year veteran of the studio who left in 2023) gave an extensive interview to PC Gamer in which he revealed that TES VI was originally meant to enter production immediately after Fallout 4 in 2015, before the studio pivoted to Fallout 76 and then Starfield.

He also disclosed that Howard had verbally promised him the lead designer role on TES6 years in advance, only for someone else to be selected over a decade later, which led to his exit. Kuhlmann described the narrative direction he had envisioned: The Elder Scrolls VI would have been structured like The Empire Strikes Back, featuring a story where the Thalmor, the elven supremacist faction introduced as Skyrim's shadowy antagonists, would ultimately triumph rather than be defeated. Players could "secretly save the day" in smaller ways, but the game would end with "the Thalmor on the march," deliberately subverting the franchise's "chosen one saves everything" formula and setting up a full reversal in The Elder Scrolls VII. Kuhlmann himself acknowledged the idea may have been unfeasible in practice, as a cliffhanger ending requiring a sequel to resolve is a bold proposition for a franchise where entries are separated by over a decade, and also doubted Bethesda would have sanctioned a game with a "bad" ending. Whether the current creative direction retains any echo of the Thalmor as a central narrative thread remains unknown.

Gameplay Features and Mechanics

The clearest statement of intent for The Elder Scrolls VI's gameplay came from Todd Howard himself in a 2023 interview with GQ: "I will say that we want it to fill that role of the ultimate fantasy world simulator. And there are different ways to accomplish that, given the time that has passed." It is a deliberately ambitious frame, one that implies a game that reaches beyond Skyrim's scope rather than simply iterating on it.

The most detailed picture of what that "ultimate simulator" vision looks like in practice came from a February 2025 rumor by well-sourced insider eXtas1s, whose information aligned with previous leaks and Bethesda employee activity. According to that report, the game will feature:

• Naval combat and ship building inspired by Starfield's ship construction system, with players able to build and sail their own vessels
• Marine and underwater exploration, including islands off the coast of the mainland
• Fortress, village, and settlement building, expanding on the base building introduced in Fallout 4
• 12–13 major cities, a significant step up in urban density compared to previous entries
• Dragons returning, with improved combat and progression systems
• Improved progression and combat systems, with an even more flexible approach to character builds
• Faster loading times and a push toward greater immersion

Whether all of these features survive into the final product remains to be seen. Insider reports are inherently prone to being potentially incorrect or outdated, but the scope described is consistent with Howard's "ultimate fantasy world simulator" framing and with the coastal geography of the rumored Hammerfell and High Rock setting, where naval mechanics would feel native rather than tacked on. Howard has also confirmed that mod support will be as friendly as in all of Bethesda's previous titles, which shouldn't really be surprising given Skyrim's incredible modding success.

Tech and Specs

The Elder Scrolls VI will run on Creation Engine 3, a new iteration of Bethesda's proprietary engine, not Unreal Engine 5, which has been widely adopted by the industry in recent years and was also used as the graphics rendering engine for Oblivion Remastered. Howard confirmed this in February 2026, noting that Bethesda has spent the last several years upgrading its engine specifically for TES VI rather than switching to a third-party solution. This is likely because of modding support, which would be greatly diminished if the studio switched to Unreal Engine 5 (or any other third-party engine, for that matter).

Creation Engine 3 builds on the foundation of Creation Engine 2, which was used by Starfield. Howard has noted he is really happy with the new stuff the engine is doing on the rendering side, though no formal technical specifications have been published. A deeper technical breakdown is unlikely until Bethesda is ready to fully reveal the game. We'll update this article once more information becomes available as we get closer to the game's debut.