Bethesda details the current state of The Elder Scrolls VI

After years of silence and speculation, Bethesda Game Studios has finally offered a A comprehensive and relatively concrete update on the development of The Elder Scrolls VIThe information comes from several recent interviews, mainly with Game Informer and other international media outlets, in which key developers such as Todd Howard, Angela Browder, and Emil Pagliarulo have explained the current status of the project and what can be expected in the medium and long term..

The messages are clear: The new Elder Scrolls is progressing reasonably well, now has most of the studio working on it, and aims for a considerable technical leap compared to Skyrim.At the same time, Bethesda insists that it will not accelerate the timeline just to appease the community's impatience, confirming that there is still a considerable wait ahead before we can explore Tamriel again in the sixth numbered installment.

The bulk of Bethesda is already working on The Elder Scrolls VI

In these recent interviews, Todd Howard, director and executive producer of Bethesda Game Studios, has made it clear that The pre-production stage is over and the studio's priority is now The Elder Scrolls VIAccording to him, most of the team is already focused on this project, after completing the main support and most important content for Starfield.

Howard explains that Bethesda usually organizes with overlapping developments and very long pre-productionsThis was already hinted at in the original announcement of The Elder Scrolls VI at E3 2018. This approach allows them to calmly define the foundations of the game before entering full production, but it also significantly lengthens the time between announcements and releases.

The creative director acknowledges that the studio shares the players' sense of impatience: Everyone would like development to be fasteror much faster, but insists that it's a process they want to "do right." Bethesda is aware that it's preparing one of the most anticipated titles of the decade and doesn't want to compromise quality by rushing.

A project that is "progressing very well", but still far off

The idea that the game is progressing as planned is repeated time and again. Todd Howard has pointed out on several occasions that The Elder Scrolls VI is "progressing very well" and the team is satisfied with the direction of development.Other people responsible for the study, such as Emil Pagliarulo, reinforce that message with an important nuance: the project is not going to be rushed.

Pagliarulo has given as an example major delays for GTA 6which, in his opinion, were "the smartest thing its creators could have done." With this, the designer implies that Bethesda's priority for this new Elder Scrolls is for it to arrive as polished as possible, even if that means waiting several more years.

This approach aligns with other previous statements by Howard, in which he already admitted that The Elder Scrolls VI is “a long way off” from release And he asked for patience from the fans. In previous interviews, the director even joked about how he likes to announce games and release them without much advance notice, suggesting that, in an ideal world, the title would appear almost as a surprise once it was completely finished.

The long wait since the 2018 trailer

The temporal context helps to understand why the community is especially impatient. It's been over seven years since Bethesda unveiled The Elder Scrolls VI with a brief teaser at E3 2018, a video that barely showed a mountainous landscape but was enough to ignite the enthusiasm of the saga's fans (How many Elder Scrolls games are there?).

That announcement also came when Skyrim had already established itself for years as one of the great benchmarks of open world role-playingwith versions on virtually every platform in the European and global market. Many players interpreted that teaser as the start of a relatively short countdown, imagining they would be able to play within a few years.

The reality has been quite different. Over time, Howard has acknowledged that The announcement of The Elder Scrolls VI came too soon in relation to the actual state of the projectAt that time, the studio hadn't yet fully committed to development, and much of its effort was focused on completing Starfield. The result has been an exceptionally long wait, which has given rise to rumors, theories, and the occasional misunderstanding involving trailers and advertising campaigns unrelated to the game.

Calm in the face of rumors and lack of a release date

Despite this new flow of information, Bethesda has not given no specific launch window has been given, nor has he dared to specify a year. The Elder Scrolls VI has not yet been released for PC and consoles. Specific platforms have not been confirmed, although in Europe it is widely assumed that the title will be available on next-generation hardware and the Xbox and PC ecosystem from day one.

In recent years, the following have circulated leaks and documents related to internal Microsoft processes These reports suggested possible target dates. Some of these references mentioned 2026, while more recent estimates place the launch no earlier than the end of the decade, with 2028 being a relatively optimistic scenario.

These timelines have not been publicly confirmed by Bethesda, but they fit with the idea that The development will still need many years of work And with the studio's stated intention of prioritizing polish and stability. The lessons learned from the technically problematic launches of previous blockbusters seem to have sunk in, and Bethesda wants to avoid mistakes that could tarnish such an important release.

An “unimaginable” technological leap since Skyrim

If there is one point on which all those responsible agree, it is on the enormous technological leap that The Elder Scrolls VI intends to make compared to SkyrimAngela Browder, the studio director, has repeatedly emphasized that current hardware offers rendering and open-world building possibilities that were unthinkable at the time of the previous main installment in the saga.

Browder describes the situation as a “an infinite range of possibilities” He says that sometimes, when he sees what the team is achieving, he's surprised by how far technology has come since the days of Skyrim. To illustrate this progress, he compared the difference between the original Oblivion and its recent remaster, an example that helps visualize the evolution of Bethesda's graphics engine and development tools.

This leap is not limited to the visual aspect alone. The director insists that The power of current hardware allows for the creation of more complex and believable worlds.with interconnected systems that react better to the player's decisions. From a European and Spanish perspective, where Skyrim remains one of the most reviewed and replayed titles of the last decade, the promise of such a major evolution generates very high expectations among fans of Western-style role-playing games.

A denser world, with more trees and more life

Among the specific details about the world's design, one of Todd Howard's comments has particularly caught attention: The Elder Scrolls VI will have “more trees than Skyrim”It may sound like an anecdote, but it points to a clear design direction: lusher, more varied scenarios full of natural elements that help reinforce the feeling of immersion.

As the director himself explained, one of the team's objectives is to build richer and more organic environments, with more abundant and diverse flora than in previous games in the series. The density of forests, scrubland, and vegetation in general is not only intended to have a visual impact, but also to influence how the map is explored and routes are planned.

Denser vegetation can mean deeper forests, less linear areas, and hidden paths that encourage straying from the main path, something that fits perfectly with the most common way of playing in Europe and Spain, where many users spend hours exploring every corner of the map. Furthermore, debates about Which is the longest Elder Scrolls game?All of this relies on the capabilities of the new generation of consoles and the most powerful PCs, which allow more elements to be loaded and rendered without significantly compromising performance.

Fan pressure and the "slow-cooking" philosophy

Although expectations are enormous, Bethesda insists on keeping things grounded. Emil Pagliarulo has been very clear about this, reminding everyone that The community wants a game that arrives when it's truly ready, not a rushed version that fails to meet expectations.To explain it, he used a cooking metaphor: it is preferable to have a "turkey" that spends the necessary time in the oven than one that comes out half-cooked.

This philosophy also reflects the studio's reputation for its major releases, which often come with errors and technical problems in its early daysThe developers of The Elder Scrolls VI are aware that, given the media attention and the brand's popularity, any flaw will be scrutinized in detail in Europe and the rest of the world. Therefore, the internal directive is to take all the time necessary to ensure the most polished experience possible.

External pressure is not limited to comments on social media. The 2018 teaser has already surpassed tens of millions of views.And every video game event in the West generates anticipation about whether new images or a more complete trailer will finally be shown. For now, Bethesda remains cautious and prefers to talk about general goals and design philosophy rather than show specific sections of the game.

Project overlap and the role of other Bethesda games

Despite The Elder Scrolls VI grabbing all the attention, Bethesda Game Studios hasn't limited itself to just one project. Todd Howard has reminded us that The studio usually has several projects underway, with overlapping teams.This explains why, even with most of the staff already focused on the new Elder Scrolls installment, other projects continue to progress in parallel.

These projects include Additional content for Starfield and remasters of previous titles, such as Oblivion or Fallout 3, which have appeared in various recent leaks and announcements. While these side projects help maintain a presence in the European and global market while the next big project is in development, they also contribute to prolonging the wait for the fantasy RPG.

In any case, Howard has insisted that The Elder Scrolls VI is now the top priority within the studioThe message that we want to convey to European players, including Spanish ones, is that the title is far from forgotten, but is in a key phase of its development, with the main team fully involved.

A future benchmark for open-world role-playing games

With everything that's been said in recent months, the general feeling is that The Elder Scrolls VI It aims to become one of the great open-world role-playing games of the next decadeBethesda is aware that it is competing in an increasingly demanding landscape, with blockbusters like GTA 6 or new installments of well-established sagas, and wants its next big RPG to live up to that context.

From a European perspective, where Skyrim and Oblivion continue to enjoy very active communities, the leap forward presented by the sixth installment is seen as an opportunity to to set a new standard in exploration, emergent narrative and freedom of actionIf it manages to balance its technical ambition with good optimization and a relatively stable launch, it has a good chance of becoming one of the most influential titles in the genre.

For now, the only certainty is that The wait will continue, and it's best not to get your hopes up about a date anytime soon.However, the fact that Bethesda is speaking more openly, acknowledging the long absence of new features, and detailing the magnitude of the technological leap indicates that The Elder Scrolls VI has finally emerged from the shadows. It remains to be seen when, how, and on which exact platforms this effort will materialize, but everything points to Tamriel once again taking center stage in the international gaming landscape when the time comes.