Bethesda fans have been eagerly waiting for The Elder Scrolls 6 for more than a decade, as the previous game in the role-playing series, Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, was released in 2011. In fact, the studio was facing extreme pressure from the series’ fandom, with many frequently asking about any updates on the next instalment. Thus, it became an unavoidable situation, which led to the developer finally revealing The Elder Scrolls 6 seven years after the last one, in 2018.
Actually, the lead designer of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim recently spoke on the matter, admitting that Todd Howard, Bethesda’s executive producer and one of the studio’s key personalities behind The Elder Scrolls series, was not initially planning on revealing The Elder Scrolls 6. It was only done because fans of the series were getting more persistent and frustrated with each passing year.
According to the aforementioned designer, things got so bad that it was equivalent to the fandom having “pitchforks and torches” out.
Bruce Nesmith, Skyrim Lead Designer, Spoke About The Elder Scrolls 6
Aside from talking about Todd Howard basically being pressured by fans into finally revealing The Elder Scrolls 6, Bruce Nesmith also discussed some other aspects of the highly anticipated sequel. One of which is that, although he absolutely loved Baldur’s Gate 3, he does not think that the upcoming The Elder Scrolls title would have much influence from Larian Studio’s role-playing video game.
Moreover, even though it was confirmed five years ago that The Elder Scrolls 6 is most definitely going to happen, fans will have to wait a while longer for Bethesda to actually release it.
Bruce Nesmith’s statement definitely seems to check out because, just a while back, Todd Howard himself admitted that he did not exactly like the way in which he handled the reveal of The Elder Scrolls 6. Considering how long it has been since the game was initially announced by Bethesda, no other majorly significant updates or developments have been revealed about it through the years.
For those wondering why the developer would bother to announce it in the first place if no work was being put into it, the Skyrim lead designer says that The Elder Scrolls 6 was only revealed because of fans constantly pushing the studio.
The conversation about The Elder Scrolls 6 took place during Bruce Nesmith’s interview with MinnMax, as he stated that Bethesda had to take “years of hits for not” giving updates about the game. Emphasizing heavily on the phrase “years of hits,” Nesmith continued by saying that he completely agrees with Todd Howard’s perspective on the video game industry, who thinks it has “short memories.”
According to the Skyrim lead designer, studios that announce their titles “years ahead of time” basically “screw themselves.”
Continuing with the conversation about The Elder Scrolls 6, Bruce Nesmith believes that “the best time to start talking about” a video game “is six months before release.”
Fans Had “Pitchforks and Torches” Out for The Elder Scrolls 6 Reveal
Todd Howard was initially not really planning on revealing The Elder Scrolls 6 anytime soon, but since the fans had “the pitchforks and torches” out, he was basically bullied into saying, “yes, we’re going to do Elder Scrolls 6, I promise you, it’s for real, it’ll happen.”
According to Bruce Nesmith, tying into his previous statement about “the best time” at which a game should be revealed, fans can expect not to “hear much in the way of details until a good six months before release” of the next The Elder Scrolls instalment. Bethesda has already practiced this approach eight years ago, in 2015, when it announced Fallout 4 in June and launched it around five months later, in November.
Naturally, fans expected the same thing to happen with The Elder Scrolls 6, hoping that it would be released sometime in 2018 a few months after the initial announcement, but of course, that did not happen.
For those unfamiliar with Bruce Nesmith and his work, he left Bethesda two years ago, in 2021, after spending two decades there. Aside from being the lead designer on Skyrim, he has worked on all of the studio’s Fallout titles, Oblivion, and Daggerfall.
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