Elder Scrolls The Elder Scrolls VI - officially announced but you'll have to wait

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...e-settled-on-a-region-for-the-elder-scrolls-6

Yes, Todd Howard and team have settled on The Elder Scrolls 6's region
"You can rule some things in. And you can rule some things out."

When Todd Howard announced The Elder Scrolls 6 at the end of Bethesda's E3 show, the message was clear: we're working on the game but it's a very long way away. We saw a very brief trailer of a mountainous, coastal environment, and then a logo, and that was it.

But what were we seeing? Was this the setting of the new game or a kind of red herring - a generic Elder Scrollsian scene made for the trailer? Has Bethesda Game Studios even settled on the region we'll play in yet?

I thought we'd wait yonks for an answer but as luck would have it I got one from Todd Howard at Spanish conference Gamelab this week.

"Yes," he told me, Bethesda has settled on the region The Elder Scrolls 6 will be based in. And it was decided, he said, "a while ago".

Is it possible, then, to work out from the trailer which region it is?

"I obviously would say yes," he said, "but you can't - it's intentionally... You can rule some things out. And you can rule some things in.

"The first thing we do is the world so we've known for a while where it's set."

We had fun going to town on The Elder Scrolls 6 trailer and trying to work out where the game will take place, and we think we've figured it out - so I put our best guess to Howard.

"Is it Hammerfell?" I asked.

"I'm not going to answer where it's set!" he laughed.

Bethesda Game Studios announcing a game so far ahead of launch was out of sorts with how the company has done business in recent years. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim was formally announced a year away from launch, and more recently Fallout 4 was announced only six months (five, Howard corrected me) from launch. So why announce The Elder Scrolls 6 so far out?

"That was a debate, 'Should we do this?'" said Howard.

"There were two things in our heads about that. One, we're going to E3 and showing a new Fallout game [Fallout 76] which is very different than we usually do, and then we're going to show you an Elder Scrolls game [Blades - the mobile game] that is very different than we would usually do, and if we leave it just at that, our fans are like, '... - Are you still going to do the things I love?'

"Let's just say it. It's better to say we're making it. It makes life a little bit easier for us."

"We had already said publicly, 'We are eventually going to do Elder Scrolls 6 but we have these other projects...' and we felt like we would be saying that same thing right after E3 at something like this [Gamelab], so let's make sure our fans know this is coming, and in what order. They don't know what years - we have some ideas but we're not positive either - but 'here are the things we're going to be doing'."

People were already talking - and coming to their own conclusions - about The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield, the new sci-fi IP Bethesda Game Studios will make before TES6, so why not get it out in the open? "Let's just say it," Howard and team decided. "It's better to say we're making it. It makes life a little bit easier for us. [If we didn't say anything] they would be disappointed and they'd still ask 'What about Starfield?' and 'What about Elder Scrolls 6?'. But it's also exciting! We're excited; we want to share it with everybody.

"The negative is," he added, "are we distracting from what we're putting out now? But people get it. Let's just be upfront - this is what we're doing, when, and in what order."

But another negative could be building hype too early, I say. "Potentially," he said. "We're not saying a lot. I don't worry about that. I worry about what happens in the future when people say, 'Well when am I going to hear about it again?' and then you're saying, 'I can't tell you.'

"There'll certainly be some new negatives we didn't anticipate but there's a lot of positives so we'll see how it goes. Ask me next cycle!" he said. "Next time you're like, 'Are you sure that was a good idea?'"

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

"Is it Hammerfell?" I asked.

Just what we need, another kangs game.

 

[Akratus]

They teased Boston in Fallout 3 and we got Fallout 4 set there. They teased Hammerfell in Skyrim so my bet is Hammerfell with the big bad being the Thalmor. It's one of the few lands left with a majority human population and I doubt they'd want to set it in something like Morrowind again so as to appeal to normies. I would hazard a guess they'd include some other lands at least partially too. They would want to make the game appear much more grand than Skyrim for marketing purposes. My 2 cents.

 

[RNGsus]

Akavir.

"Is it Hammerfell?" I asked.

Just what we need, another kangs game.

Its gonna be West Virginia.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

They teased Boston in Fallout 3 and we got Fallout 4 set there. They teased Hammerfell in Skyrim so my bet is Hammerfell with the big bad being the Thalmor. It's one of the few lands left with a majority human population and I doubt they'd want to set it in something like Morrowind again so as to appeal to normies. I would hazard a guess they'd include some other lands at least partially too. They would want to make the game appear much more grand than Skyrim for marketing purposes. My 2 cents.

Maybe. But the video they revealed didn't look like Hammerfell - see Daggerfall. But then again, they've had no problem retconning province appearance before

 

[RNGsus]

Brownest game ever achievement is in the bag.

 

[Akratus]

We wuz blademasters an shiet ayo fuck whitey mang

 

[DosBuster]

They teased Boston in Fallout 3 and we got Fallout 4 set there.

Actually, Fallout 4 wasn't originally going to be set in Boston, it was going to be New York according to that noclip documentary.

 

[theSavant]

Not gonna even bother with this shit.
First they'd need to get rid of gamebryo.

According to a recent interview it's still looks like that embryo with certain parts exchanged. But basically he just tries to avoid answering "yes"...

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/8v2zfd/translated_interview_from_todd_howard_with/

Q: You've been using more or less the same engine for years. What about Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6?

A: I think a lot of people, who are not making games dont understand what the word "engine" stands for.

They think the engine is this one thing, we view it as technology. There's a lot of different pieces and for every game, parts of that change. For example the renderer, the AI, the animations, the script language and so on.

Some people talk about Gamebryo but we haven't used that in a decade. A lot of our engine contains a lot of middleware like Havoc. For Fallout 76 we have changed a lot. The game uses a new renderer, a new lighting system and a new system for the landscape generation. For Starfield even more of it changes. And for Elder Scrolls 6, out there on the horizon even more.

We like our editor. It allows us to create worlds really fast and the modders know it really well. There are some elementary ways we create our games and that will continue because that lets us be efficiend and we think it works best.

 

[Makabb]

Bethesda at this point can't change the engine from gamebryo, because the 'feeling' of Bethesda games will dissapear, first it was gamebryo then creation engine, gamebryo 2.0, now it will be called something else, but it will be gamebryo 3.0

 

[Feyd Rautha]

They teased Boston in Fallout 3 and we got Fallout 4 set there.

As Todd Howard recently said the location of Fallout 4 wasn't set to be in Boston originally. It took a while for them to decide and they were even thinking San Fransisco. The decision to set it in Boston was taken long after Fallout New Vegas was released. So you shouldn't be too sure.

 

[DalekFlay]

As Todd Howard recently said the location of Fallout 4 wasn't set to be in Boston originally. It took a while for them to decide and they were even thinking San Fransisco. The decision to set it in Boston was taken long after Fallout New Vegas was released. So you shouldn't be too sure.

Fair enough, but I also don't think it's a coincidence that Morrowind teased Emperor issues in Cyrodiil and Fallout 3 teased the synths in the Commonwealth. You could at least say they were strong contenders ahead of time.

In any case I think the more important point is a mostly human area with a mostly Earth-like look, because that is what sells and Howard has said before that is what sells. Hammerfell and High Rock are therefore the obvious two candidates, and could be done at the same time if they feel like it. Basically a Daggerfall redo. High Rock could be DLC too, maybe. Or Stros McKai (however you spell it).

 

[DosBuster]

TES will never be set in lands that are populated by beast races, quote from Kirkbride himself:

And we're not ever going to see an rpg set in the cat-nation. Not in this decade, anyway. Said it before: TES is the story of the fall of Man to Mer. The beasts are just bystanders to the rest.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/co...ium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=frontpage

 

[Citizen]

TES will never be set in lands that are populated by beast races, quote from Kirkbride himself:

And we're not ever going to see an rpg set in the cat-nation. Not in this decade, anyway. Said it before: TES is the story of the fall of Man to Mer. The beasts are just bystanders to the rest.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/co...ium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=frontpage

 

[Strange Fellow]

Best LP I ever read was of that game. It's a travesty that the pics are dead: http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/per-plays-a-game-albion.181757/

 

[RNGsus]

TES will never be set in lands that are populated by beast races, quote from Kirkbride himself:

And we're not ever going to see an rpg set in the cat-nation. Not in this decade, anyway. Said it before: TES is the story of the fall of Man to Mer. The beasts are just bystanders to the rest.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/co...ium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=frontpage

Shit happens.

 

[Yosharian]

Good god, they're seriously still gonna use Gamebryo for ES6?

What the actual fuck, I assumed we were waiting all this time because they were building a new fucking engine.

 

[Fargus]

"Is it Hammerfell?" I asked.

Just what we need, another kangs game.

I dont see the problem. A province full of spearchuckers to genocide proud and mighty wakandians to fight. Sounds like fun.

Spoiler

 

[ortucis]

Good god, they're seriously still gonna use Gamebryo for ES6?

What the actual fuck, I assumed we were waiting all this time because they were building a new fucking engine.

You think they'll abandon a tool-set that that has made them billions by letting idiots finish their games for them?

Hell, they are now selling mods on consoles or making it a "feature" that is not just on PC anymore because a lot of people buy their games based on mod support. Abandoning this engine means reworking all that and that means losing modders who help them sell their shit games for years.

Right now, every new game based on same engine can have mods in a month of its release. That's a BIG deal for Bethesda.

 

[DalekFlay]

Good god, they're seriously still gonna use Gamebryo for ES6?

What the actual fuck, I assumed we were waiting all this time because they were building a new fucking engine.

As said above, they have precisely zero incentive to pay for an entirely new engine. They keep updating their old one and the games keep selling like gangbusters. If that is ever not the case THEN they will look at new tech.

 

[Yosharian]

Good god, they're seriously still gonna use Gamebryo for ES6?

What the actual fuck, I assumed we were waiting all this time because they were building a new fucking engine.

You think they'll abandon a tool-set that that has made them billions by letting idiots finish their games for them?

Hell, they are now selling mods on consoles or making it a "feature" that is not just on PC anymore because of a lot of people buy their games based on mod support. Abandoning this engine means reworking all that and that means losing modders who help them sell their shit games for years.

Right now, every new game based on same engine can have mods in a month of its release. That's a BIG deal for Bethesda.

Christ, I hadn't thought about it like that... that's depressing

 

[unfairlight]

Good god, they're seriously still gonna use Gamebryo for ES6?

What the actual fuck, I assumed we were waiting all this time because they were building a new fucking engine.

This time around, I doubt it. Fallout 76 will probably be their last game on Gamebryo. Either they completely rework it into a whole new engine or they just work with id Soft to make an engine for them.

 

[Zer0wing]

This time around, I doubt it. Fallout 76 will probably be their last game on Gamebryo. Either they completely rework it into a whole new engine or they just work with id Soft to make an engine for them.

Morrowind is integral part of Bethesda's dumbfuck DNA, and so it's engine code can't be removed.

 

[theSavant]

Hmmm, I kinda expected them to stay at the same engine for TES6... but for Starfield too? is strange. I rather expected them to use the same engine as Prey.

 

[RNGsus]