It's hard to believe it has been more than eight years since Bethesda showed us a misty landscape flyover and a logo, and we STILL don't officially know what The Elder Scrolls VI is called.
That could change very soon!
Before we go any further, this is a RUMOR. It has NOT been confirmed by Bethesda or Microsoft.
According to a report The Verge's Tom Warren published Thursday, which cites sources familiar with Bethesda's plans, the full title of the game is The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel, and Bethesda is about to announce that name officially, possibly as soon as November.
The obvious date to circle is November 11th, the 15th anniversary of Skyrim, which launched on that day back in 2011. Warren says the announcement could come during the stretch that marks 15 years since Skyrim, and nobody has pinned down an exact day. Just don't get your hopes up for a big gameplay showcase. Warren writes that he's "only expecting a name reveal next month and nothing more."
Warren's sources also say the game is set in Hammerfell, the desert homeland of the Redguards and the province fans have bet on for years. He says it will be the first game about the history of the Elder Scrolls themselves, the mysterious ancient artifacts the series is named after. Sentinel itself is a major port city in Hammerfell on the Iliac Bay, which would keep Bethesda's habit of naming its big mainline entries after places (Morrowind and Skyrim are both provinces of Tamriel). Video Games Chronicle notes the setting itself isn't expected to be part of the November announcement, and the report doesn't say which platforms it's coming to.
Fans have visited Hammerfell before. The Iliac Bay region, Sentinel included, was part of the map in 1996's The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, the 1998 spinoff The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard took place on the Hammerfell island of Stros M'Kai, and The Elder Scrolls Online has sent players through the province too.
A mainline game set entirely in Hammerfell would be a first!
If the name sounds familiar, that's because Sentinel has been a fan favorite since August. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma visited Bethesda Game Studios in Rockville, Maryland, on August 11th, watched a live playthrough, and posted that "The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater." She hid the subtitle behind eight asterisks, and the eight-letter Sentinel quickly became the community's best guess. Not long after, former Bethesda developer Michael Kirkbride appeared to back the theory in a Reddit reply, which we covered here on GameFragger. Now a named reporter is saying the same thing! Warren also says Bethesda has been showing Sentinel gameplay in recent months.
As of Saturday, Bethesda and Microsoft haven't publicly commented on the report. For now, the only official look at the game is still the short teaser that debuted at Bethesda's E3 showcase on June 10th, 2018, the same show that gave us the first tease of Starfield. Here's that teaser again if you want to squint at those mountains one more time.
An official title would be the first real news Bethesda has given us about the game since 2018. Back in April, plenty of you were crossing your fingers for an Xbox Games Showcase reveal. Dropping the name on Skyrim's 15th birthday would be a pretty great way to do it!
What do you think? Is Sentinel the name you were hoping for, and are you ready to spend the next few hundred hours in Hammerfell?
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