At this point, it becomes more and more clear with each passing day that Bethesda was serious, and The Elder Scrolls 6 is not intended for release any time soon. Which is a bit of a shame, but honestly, if they say that the current technology is not up to scratch for them to realize whatever vision it is that they have for the game, then it is what it is.
Which implicitly seems to imply that while an Elder Scrolls 6 will happen, it will probably not happen on the current round of consoles and PCs- we’ll probably have to wait for next generation proper to be able to return to Tamriel. But, but, but- is there a possibility that we might be able to also play the next game on the PS4 and Xbox One after all? Could the next game be cross-gen?
The short answer is, no, I personally don’t expect so. As mentioned already, technology appears to be the primary reason holding back The Elder Scrolls 6 at this point- if the PS4 and Xbox One could support the game, I have no doubt we would have seen something concrete of it already. But we haven’t, because, according to Todd Howard, we cannot see them on these consoles. Furthermore, there are two more big projects under development at Bethesda Games Studios before The Elder Scrolls 6 comes out.
In such a scenario, I don’t see these games running on current consoles, even as pared back and gimped versions- they are likely to be next gen exclusive when they launch. It’s not like this would hurt Bethesda’s sales or anything, either- their franchises sell, and they sell a lot.
We also have precedence for this with Fallout 4, which actually was originally intended to be cross-gen (according to speculation), but the previous generation versions were excised so Bethesda could focus on the next gen builds. That worked out well for them- Fallout 4 sold a lot. So I don’t see why they will not want to repeat the same stunt with the next Elder Scrolls game, too.
