Bethesda reiterates Elder Scrolls 6 news is likely ‘years away’

Bethesda’s marketing boss has reiterated that the next Elder Scrolls 6 reveal is likely “years” away.

The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced at E3 2018 with a brief teaser trailer, which confirmed that the sequel was in pre-production at Bethesda Game Studios.

However, another Bethesda Game Studios title, Starfield, was also announced at E3 2018 and is ahead of the fantasy game in its release pipeline.

On Sunday Bethesda’s SVP of global marketing, Pete Hines, suggested that fans were unlikely to hear about TES6 until work on Starfield was completed.

Hines tweeted: “It’s after Starfield, which you pretty much know nothing about. So if you’re coming at me for details now and not years from now, I’m failing to properly manage your expectations.”

It’s been almost nine years since the original release of The Elder Scrolls’ last mainline entry, Skyrim, which has sold in excess of 30 million copies.

The RPG has remained consistently popular, with remasters for Nintendo Switch, VR and other consoles all performing well. MMO spin-off The Elder Scrolls Online had surpassed 15 million sales as of 2019.

In a previous interview, Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard said that Starfield would likely occupy the attention of its studios for a period of time.

Howard told IGN in 2019 that Starfield was a game he’s wanted to make “for a very, very long time.”

“We had done so many things. We were going, ‘Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Fallout’ and you have this Starfield game in your head and your sort of say, ‘when?’ It can be never – you could say never – but we’re creatives and we have to make this game, and this is the time.

“And so The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have to wait a little bit. Plus again, The Elder Scrolls Online is doing so well.”

Asked if Elder Scrolls could be outsourced to another Bethesda studio, Howard suggested the resources required to create multiple projects of this scale would make it impractical.

“The kind of things that we’re talking about are going to take a lot of people,” he said. “Every BGS studio will probably be involved in that game. Even Starfield right now… it’s not really in Austin, but in Dallas and Montreal there’s staff on Starfield as well.”