Despite being announced all the way back at E3 2018, it sounds like development on The Elder Scrolls VI is not close to being completed. According to recent studio updates, the journey to bring Tamriel’s next chapter to life is far from over.
Todd Howard, Director and Executive Producer at Bethesda Game Studios recently stated that the next main Elder Scrolls installment is, "still a long way off" but that the studio is now working on the game "everyday."
Reading between the lines, it sounds as if the game has transitioned from Pre-Production to Production, a phase of development where the entire development team including level designers, asset artists, sound engineers, writers, and a large programming team, are operating at full scale and work daily to make progress and create content.
To add more context, when The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim officially transitioned form Pre-Productio to Production, it took 3 years to complete the game. If Bethesda is following a similar timeline, fans may finally have a sense of where The Elder Scrolls VI stands on its long journey to launch.
"I'm preaching patience," Howard told GQ Magazine. "I don't want fans to feel anxious. We have hundreds of people on Fallout right now, with 76 and some other things we're doing, but The Elder Scrolls 6 is the everyday thing"
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Howard's interview was the admittance that he wants to "Beyonce" the game, that is to say he wants to just release it, with no warning or previous promotion.
"I like to just announce stuff and release it," he teased to the magazine. "My perfect version - and I'm not saying this is going to happen - is that it's going to be a while and then, one day, the game will just appear."
He admitted that the shock drop for the Oblivion remaster was something of a preemptive experiment. "You might say that was a test run," Howard teased coyly. "It worked out well."
The big question now is: just how far along is The Elder Scrolls VI in development? Given Howard's statement, we know the game isn't near the finish line but has Bethesda’s full team been deep into production for a while, or are things still in the early stages?
Currently in production at Bethesda Game Studios, the acclaimed developers of Skyrim and Fallout 4. The highly-anticipated next chapter in the iconic The Elder Scrolls series.