The Elder Scrolls 6 release date remains one of the biggest and most anticipated mysteries for fans of RPG games, but as Skyrim, Fallout, and Starfield developer Bethesda keeps its proverbial cards close to its chest, studio director Todd Howard admits he wishes the next Elder Scrolls would come out soon.
“I have a vague idea,” Howard says to YouTuber and interviewer Lex Fridman, when asked about the Elder Scrolls 6 release date. “I wish it was soon. We want them out too. And I wish they didn’t take as long as they did, but they do. If I could go back in time, it would never have been my plan to take as long as it’s taken.
“We [Bethesda] deeply love it,” Howard continues. “We all do, it’s part of us. When you’re not doing it for a while, you really do miss it. I was in a meeting yesterday and I was like ‘I just want to play all of this right now.’ But we’re going to make sure we do it right for everybody.”
Released in 2011, Skyrim remains one of the most-played and most popular games on PC, with fantastic Skyrim mods helping keep the fantasy RPG alive. Howard says this longevity affects the planning and development of any Elder Scrolls sequel.
“Skyrim is 11 years old and still probably our most played game,” he says, “and we don’t see it slowing down. People will probably be playing it ten years from now also, so you have to think ‘okay, people are going to be playing the next Elder Scrolls game for decades’, and that does change the way you think about how you architect it from the get go.”
Perhaps the best open-world games will help pass the time as we wait on the Elder Scrolls 6, or maybe we can look ahead to the next Bethesda opus and the Starfield release date, to assuage that longing for Tamriel.