The Elder Scrolls VI: Will be played for decades according to the game director

According to Game Director Todd Howards, the role-playing game The Elder Scrolls VI will probably be played for decades.

We’ll have to wait a long time for the next installment in The Elder Scrolls RPG series. Some things just take time. Todd Howard agrees.

However, the game director at Bethesda Game Studios wishes he could turn back time so we can all play it now, as he revealed on a podcast.

Regarding what players can expect in The Elder Scrolls VI, Howard said on the Lex Fridman Podcast, “I have a vague idea [davon, wann es kommt]. I wish it was soon. We want it too, and I wish it wouldn’t take them so long, but they do. If I could turn back time, it would never have been my plan to wait as long as it is taking now.”

The development of the role-playing game should go right from the start, because Bethesda assumes that it could be played for decades. The best example is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This is now more than a decade old and still very popular with role players.

“We’re going to make sure we’re doing it right for everyone. People play games for a long time, you know. Skyrim is 11 years old – probably still our most played game. We don’t think it’s going away and people will probably still be playing it 10 years from now. So you have to realize that people are going to play the next Elder Scrolls game for a decade or two, and that changes the way you think about the game’s architecture from the start.”

Howard also revealed more about the production process of new projects. He has already worked out the beginning of the game and in addition to the basic theme of the game and its functions, the music is also composed and developed early on.

“We start with concept, so we do concept art, and for one reason or another I usually have the beginning of the game already laid out. I like to think about how the game starts, what the player does first. We make music early.”

“Let’s take Elder Scrolls 6 – we think about where it’s set, what the tone is, what the big features are. We’re going to discuss the beginning of the game, which we’ve had for a long time. Then we like to make music. So we’ve already made a version of the music for Elder Scrolls 6 – the music we used in the teaser for the game. That was in 2018. Of course we continued with that.”

“We’re working on the world and once we’ve completed a game, we can start prototyping for the new game. And usually you build the first rooms. So we like to do a first playable version, a smaller part of the game that we can try out and show people, ‘Hey, this is how it feels different, this is how it looks, that’s what’s special about it.’”

The Elder Scrolls VI is coming…when it’s done.