“We all expected [The Elder Scrolls 6] to be directly after Fallout 4. Why wouldn’t it be? That’s what we did, and that was kind of the expectation. And then Fallout 76 came along.”

He went on to talk about how Fallout 76 was originally supposed to be a more focused project, with Bethesda Austin – formerly BattleCry Studios – working on it. It wasn’t meant to involve the entirety of Bethesda during development, with the rest of the team instead focusing on Starfield.

“It wasn’t originally supposed to involve our whole studio. But then, I mean, what we were supposed to be working on next—it wasn’t ever that we were about to suddenly work on TES 6, even though that’s what I think most people wanted… And then Todd [Howard] was like: ‘No, we’re doing Starfield. I got that approved. It’s going to be a new IP. It’s going to be this ambitious [game]. It’s going to be the greatest space RPG ever made.’”

This decision was seemingly a surprise to many. Howard describing it as his “dream game”, along with the company seeing quite a bit of success with Fallout 4, likely gave him more leeway to not immediately begin working on The Elder Scrolls 6. “Fallout 4 was a very successful game. And I think he had maybe the opportunity and the ability to go to the people running Zenimax and say, ‘I want to not do TES 6’. Which seems like a pretty hard sell, right? And it must have been.”

Kuhlmann spoke about how he didn’t really want to work on Starfield, and he “would’ve much rather been making The Elder Scrolls 6 instead of 76 and Starfield.” “And I think that would probably be true for the majority of the studio. That’s what most people wanted to do, you know? It wasn’t like Starfield was this big internal like, ‘hey, we all want to make this space game, Todd.’ It was very much, ‘guess what, team? We’re making this space game.’”

While the response to both of the games following Fallout 4 had been quite mixed at launch, Kuhlmann acknowledged that it was “very nice to have that, ‘okay, now for something completely different’, every few years and it was something you could look forward to.” He also noted that the existence of The Elder Scrolls Online may have played a role in quenching some fans’ thirst for a new entry in the franchise.

“There was another Scrolls project, and it was ongoing. It was creating new content constantly. And there are a lot of people—I know there are single-player people, I’m one of those people—but there are a lot of people for whom The Elder Scrolls is now ESO. That’s their experience with it, and that’s what they love, and that’s where they got their ESO, or their Elder Scrolls gaming experience.”

In the meantime, Bethesda is currently working on a number of projects across the Fallout franchise alongside its ongoing development of The Elder Scrolls 6.

Fans of Bethesda’s games have taken the speculation a step further and have discovered some hints about The Elder Scrolls 6 in Starfield. As Reddit user StarfieldNovember noted, the Sentinel title could be spotted in the character creation screen for Starfield, which was first shown off more than three years ago. The “Employee Number” for a Starfield character, while initially looking like a random string, seems to in fact be a deliberate range of numbers – 190514-2009140512.

Dividing the entire string into pairs of numbers and introducing a substitution cipher to the mix to swap out pairs of numbers for the corresponding letter in the English alphabet, players have discovered that it spells out Sentinel. For example, “S” is the 19th letter of the alphabet. Similarly, “E” is the 5th letter. Another user on the Elder Scrolls subreddit noted that the number always stays the same, which would imply that it was a deliberate choice by Bethesda Game Studios.

Even if Kirkbride’s “confirmation” about Sentinel being the official title for The Elder Scrolls 6 might be suspect, since he hasn’t worked at Bethesda for quite some time now, the fact that the word Sentinel also shows up in Starfield offers stronger evidence for the veracity of the title.

Speculation about The Elder Scrolls 6’s title began when Sharma confirmed that she had played an early build of the open-world RPG. Referring to it as “The Elder Scrolls VI: ********”, and getting further confirmation from Bethesda that the hidden word is eight letters in length, fans of the company’s games immediately got to work to try and figure out what it could mean. If the title turns out to be Sentinel, this means that the upcoming game could be taking place in the region of Hammerfell.

Sentinel is one of the nine kingdoms in Hammerfell, and serves as the capital for two regions: the Alik’r Desert and Myrkwasa. The city itself has also been considered one of the safe havens for the western side of the world, and has been considered to be the capital for the entire Hammerfell region following the events of the Tiber War. When it comes to the games, Sentinel has only shown up in the first two releases in the franchise – Arena and Daggerfall. Since then, the region has only been mentioned throughout other games in books and conversations.

Another interesting aspect of the potential title is the fact that The Elder Scrolls 6 would be the third mainline entry in the franchise to feature a region name in its title, following The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Other mainline entries have featured names like Arena, Daggerfall, and Oblivion.

Noting that he had worked on Starfield for a year before leaving Bethesda, Purkeypile said, “It’s very accurate that if I was in charge of Starfield, I would not have done it that way at all.” Offering further explanation, he said that the procedurally-generated planets, which can often end up being quite boring, were quite antithetical to the typical Bethesda style of RPG. “I would have done a handful of planets with bespoke layouts,” he explained.

“Even early on, I was drawing parallels to Mass Effect 1 and how those, you know, procedural planets with repeated dungeons panned out. And I was like, I don’t think this is a good idea. If you’re going to do the 1000s of planets thing, you really need to go the full No Man’s Sky route and have it actually be generating unique content all the time, not just stitching stuff together in slightly different ways. That’s not procedural.”

Starfield’s reliance on procedural generation, he said, prevented players from being able to scan the horizon for interesting landmarks and then trying to get there. The random generation also meant that players had to face “repeated content” rather than the development team being more intentional with “where things are and why”. This was perfectly encapsulated by Purkeypile when he compared leaving a major city in Starfield.

“You go to like the major city in Starfield, and it’s huge, but then like outside the city, there’s nothing. And it’s like this doesn’t even make sense as a world.”

Meanwhile, despite its rocky start, Starfield has gone on to be incredibly successful for Bethesda, with the company recently confirming that it had accumulated more than 17 million players. Bethesda has also said that it will continue to be an “important part of our future”, and that work has started on “new stories, targeted gameplay improvements, and additional updates, while preparing for the launch of new Starborn content next year.”

Starfield is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and rumors from earlier this year have indicated that Bethesda is also working on bringing the space-faring RPG to the Nintendo Switch 2. While no official announcement has yet been made, a rating for Starfield was spotted on the Taiwan Entertainment Software Rating Information website, where it was rated R thanks to its inclusion of violence, drugs, and inappropriate language.

For more details, check out our review of the game from back when it came to PS5 earlier this year. While you’re at it, also take a look at our thoughts on its two expansions – Shattered Space and Terran Armada.

Dubbing the space-faring RPG as an “important part of our future,” Bethesda confirmed Year 3 of its release would include “new stories, targeted gameplay improvements, and additional updates, while preparing for the launch of new Starborn content next year.”

It also announced over 17 million players who have logged nearly one billion hours to date. Even if the majority are on Game Pass, that attach rate certainly is impressive. Over 40 percent of players have also dabbled in Creations, with Bethesda committed to its Creators (who have already earned $10 million+ in royalties).

Of course, it remains to be seen if Starfield will receive an expansion along the lines of Shattered Space, which received mixed to negative reviews at launch. Terran Armada opted for a smaller scale in its storytelling and new content, and even that has left fans wanting.

Bethesda may opt to slowly but surely expand on Starfield with more paid Creations. Nothing is confirmed, and while the prospect of a proper 2.0 update, especially after Free Lanes, may be a pipe dream, for now, it’s alive and still receiving support.

10. The 9th Charnel

There’s a sense that the development team behind this had grand plans. Multiple playable characters with different backstories, survival mechanics, stealth, “realistic graphics” (their words, not mine) – it seems intriguing enough, until you actually play it. Poor performance, terrible voice acting, awful controls – that it even runs feels like a miracle. Minimal expectations aside, there’s just a sheer lack of redeeming qualities that would make you hope for better. Which sounds like a good time to segue to…

9. Code Violet

On the one hand, what can one expect anything from Teamkill Media in this day and age? Quantum Error was awful, but at least there was some sense that the studio was trying. Failing, sure, but trying all the same to make…something. Son and Bone was a waste of time, and with Code Violet, it appears to have given up even attempting to make an entertaining game. Awful story, awful gameplay, bland characters – the only reason it isn’t higher up is because of the negative hype going in.

8. Bubsy 4D

I wasn’t much of a Bubsy fan back in the day, but I admit that he’s had a rough time of it over the years. So seeing a 3D comeback like this from developer Fabraz was a nice feeling, with some decent humor and an intriguing, if ultimately uninteresting premise. But as it wore on, it became evident that Bubsy, annoying as he could be, was the least of the game’s problems, whether it’s the barren levels, occasionally iffy platforming, or a janky camera. Knowing what the developer is capable of, Bubsy 4D couldn’t measure up, even under little pressure.

7. Aphelion

Aphelion struggles to make a strong impression. Its story may have moments that pull you in, but it never reaches the level of intrigue or emotional weight it seems to be aiming for. The bigger issue is the gameplay, which quickly becomes a drag, with poor controls making even basic interactions feel more frustrating than they should. No one was expecting a sci-fi masterpiece, but it is still surprising how flat and uninteresting Aphelion feels overall.

6. Atomic Heart: Blood on Crystal

Speaking of “uninteresting,” if this were the first DLC for P-3’s bizarre adventure, I could see the reasoning for not expecting much. But this is the finale, the one that sets up the future, never mind the conclusion to the conflict between P-3 and CHAR-les. Instead, we get repetitive combat, annoying and tiresome traversal, and the same awful dialogue that marred the base game. If anything, at least it’s over, and we can move on to better things, even if Blood on Crystal doesn’t inspire much hope for the future.

5. Kiln

Maybe this hits more personally than the others, because you can see the sheer charm and originality in Kiln’s universe. But there’s still no denying how much of a bad idea it was from the word go. I’m all for supporting a studio’s creativity, but a multiplayer arena brawler in this day and age, that too from a team renowned for its single-player efforts? Did Double Fine not see what happened with Ninja Theory and Bleeding Edge? As a whole, Kiln doesn’t even muster above interesting. It’s as insubstantial as they come and all the charm in the world can’t save it.

4. Romeo is a Dead Man

If there’s anything you should take away from its placement on this list, it’s that I very much wanted to like Grasshopper Manufacture’s latest. The style, the atmosphere calling back to Tokusatsu greats like Ultraman and Kamen Rider, and the trippy narrative, which went beyond your average intergalactic hunt for space-time fugitives into something more surreal, were all pretty strong. It’s just that the actual gameplay left so much to be desired, especially with repetitive combat, underwhelming level design, lackluster enemy variety and shoddy performance. While it’s not the worst game of all time, it definitely needed more polish to match its overwhelming sense of style, especially given what the studio has been capable of at its peak.

3. Dead or Alive 6: Last Round

Far be it from the base game to inspire much love, either from long-time fans or fighting game nerds, but you would think in 2026 that Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo would attempt a clean slate. Dead or Alive 7 has been announced, after all. Surely they could revitalize Dead or Alive 6 with revamped mechanics, balance changes, less awful monetization, rollback netcode and a Tag Team mode that fans have been craving for years and years.

Last Round doesn’t offer any of that. In fact, it demands you repurchase all those characters and their costumes at higher prices. And to rub even more salt in the wound, the 2019 version has been delisted, which means you’re paying for a buggier follow-up that’s also trying to fleece you. Is this the same Koei Tecmo that released Nioh 3 and Pokemon Pokopia, two of this year’s best games? While the controversy will likely die down when Dead or Alive 7 rolls around, it’s amazing how well the publisher has effectively killed interest in the series, making anyone who cared about it feel like an utter fool.

2. Starfield: Terran Armada

While it’s only $10 – a far cry from the awful Shattered Space that cost $30 – and Bethesda clearly wasn’t aiming very high, Terran Armada is still frustratingly disappointing. After a year of relative silence, it should have offered a worthwhile narrative to accompany Free Lanes’ many new systems and quality-of-life improvements. It should have been Bethesda overdelivering for the fans in terms of storytelling.

Instead, there’s a new faction, enemy robots, some new ships to battle and commandeer, and Incursions to partake in. Imagine if the menial tasks in Fallout 4 actually became main mission content, against the backdrop of an initially promising story that, once again, flops on the execution. And if you’re a new player, especially with the recent PS5 version, the sheer number of bugs for the DLC alone would make you swear off Bethesda games entirely. Terran Armada may not be Bethesda’s worst ever, but it should have been an opportunity to do better rather than phoning it in.

1. Highguard

Some games fail because of unreasonable expectations, which usually emerge from extensive hype. Which is what made Wildlight Entertainment’s raid hero shooter such a fascinating anomaly. Everyone audibly groaned when it closed out The Game Awards, but the sheer audacity of it all actually drove some manner of anticipation, even if it was to watch the game fail.

The lack of communication leading up to its January launch was equally interpreted as the studio avoiding backlash and perhaps cooking up something special. Then Highguard actually dropped, just as it promised, and it was…not great. A mishmash of wildly conflicting genres, coupled with mostly uninspired heroes, painfully long matches, horrendous optimization, and more, ultimately sullied some interesting environments and solid gunplay.

Less than two months and numerous layoffs later, it was dead. You would think expecting anything from yet another dry live-service title would be folly, but given the studio’s experience, the years in development, and its funding (which may or may not have come from Tencent), it wasn’t your average project in terms of scale. If it ended up enjoyable, who knows how many of those players who checked it out on day one, expecting a massive failure, would have stuck around?

So long, Highguard – we hardly knew ye, but at least you made everyone question that one last announcement at every Summer Game Fest, Game Awards and so on going forward.

Following up Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is Capcom’s Pragmata at the number 2 spot. Third place is taken up by Crimson Desert, followed by MLB: The Show 26 in fourth place. Rounding up the top 5 is the indie pirate-themed survival crafting game Windrose. The only other new releases in the top 10 listing are Saros at ninth place, and the PS5 release of Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG Starfield.

When it comes to the entire year so far, the period from January 4th to May 2nd has seen Resident Evil Requiem taking up the top spot in terms of sales in the US. Interestingly, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream was the only recent release to make its way into the rankings at ninth place. The rest of the list is taken up by titles you’d expect, like Crimson Desert in second place, MLB The Show 26 in third place, Pokémon Pokopia in fourth place, and WWE 2K26 in fifth place.

April saw hardware sales rise, with spending going up by 34 percent year-on-year. Interestingly, much of this spending is attributed to the Nintendo Switch 2, since the original Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 have all seen year-on-year spending declines of 69 percent, 43 percent, and 30 percent, respectively.

This has made the Nintendo Switch 2 the best-selling hardware platform in terms of both number of units sold, as well as dollars of revenue generated for both the month of April itself, as well as the entire year so far. The PS5 is in second place.

Interestingly, when taking US lifetime sales into account, the PS5 is tracking 2 percent ahead of the PS4 in the same 66-month time frame. Similarly, the Nintendo Switch 2 has already taken a lead over the original Switch in the pace of its hardware sales, overtaking the 2017 console by 11 percent for the same 11-month period since their respective launches.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream topping sales charts shouldn’t really come as a surprise since the title has been a hit across social media platforms thanks to its absurdist comedy and emphasis on player freedom. The title was released on the Nintendo Switch on April 16th, and since then, has seen quite a bit of critical and commercial acclaim. Leading up to its release, Nintendo had also released a free demo for it, giving players a taste of its core gameplay that largely revolves around managing a quiet island town and its crazy denizens.

The other new title to have topped the charts this month—Pragmata—was released on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2 on April 17th, and since then, has been praised for its unique combat gameplay that melds shooting, dodging, and puzzle solving.

April 2026 U.S. Projected Top 10 Best-Selling Games Ranked on Physical & Full Game Digital Dollar Sales (Excludes Mobile and Digital Add-On Content)

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-05-20T13:00:19.106Z

YTD 2026 U.S. Projected Top 10 Best-Selling Games Ranked on Physical & Full Game Digital Dollar Sales (Excludes Mobile and Digital Add-On Content)

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-05-20T13:00:19.107Z

Hardware – April hardware spending increased by 34% when compared to a year ago, to $261M. Spending on Nintendo Switch 2 hardware offset declines seen across Switch (-69% versus April 2025), Xbox Series (-43%) and PlayStation 5 (-30%).

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-05-20T13:00:19.108Z

The announcement comes hot on the heels of a lot of players reporting crashes and being quite vocal with their dissatisfaction. It’s quite understandable given how highly anticipated this space sci-fi RPG was after a successful run on PC and Xbox. Unfortunately, this doesn’t address other issues that players have been having, and the wait for a fix on the PS5 is sure to be excruciating to those who can’t wait to begin exploring the Settled Systems. Still, this first effort is a step in the right direction.

Responses to the tweet announcing the hotfix’s release showcase a lot of players continuing to experience issues, a situation that the studio is going to want to remedy sooner rather than later. That’s especially true if it aims to sustain the hype for its rumored Switch 2 port of the game, although an official announcement is yet to make itself known.

You can check out the announcement and the responses to it if you want a front row seat to what’s unfolding. You can also check out our review of the PS5 version here.

https://x.com/BethesdaStudios/status/2044782858397462777

While neither Bethesda nor Microsoft has made any official announcement about the matter, the fact that the Switch 2 port is already getting rated means that development must be close to complete, if not done already. The rating also indicates that the game coming to a new platform is a matter of “when” rather than “if”.

It is worth noting that Starfield‘s PS5 launch has been far from a smooth journey for Bethesda. Many players took to Reddit to report experiencing frequent crashes during their time with the game. The reports also indicated that it didn’t matter whether the RPG was being played on the base PS5 or the PS5 Pro, which indicates that these issues have little to do with the console’s horsepower. To address this, however, Bethesda has confirmed that it is working on fixing these issues.

“We’re aware of some reported PS5 crashing issues and have narrowed them down to a small number of causes,” wrote the company on social media. “We’re addressing these in a hotfix we’re aiming to release this week. Thanks for flagging, and we’ll keep you posted.”

On the other hand, other players have reported having no issues during their time with Starfield. Our own review called the port a good one, giving it a score of 9 out of 10, only held back by the fact that the Free Lanes update wasn’t as comprehensive as we had hoped.

In the meantime, director Todd Howard has spoken about the divisive initial reception to Starfield, and noted that Bethesda’s other two major franchises – The Elder Scrolls and Fallout – were also quite divisive before eventually finding their audiences.

“If you look back at the beginning of Elder Scrolls, beginning of Fallout, they’re a little bit the same,” said Howard. “And then, you find an audience that loves that. So, I think it’s true that Fallout 76 and Starfield clearly – they’re creatively different than what we had done [before].”

“And we really wanted to do that. When you’re doing a certain type of thing for, in my case, 20 years, we want to try some other things and learn from that. We have ideas that we want to get out there.”

Howard has also discussed the strange way Bethesda decided to implement New Game+ through Starfield‘s Unity ending, which he called a way for him to ask players a “weird, deep question”.

“The Unity was our way of doing New Game+,” Howard explained. “It was us asking you this weird, deep question that I actually think got lost on a lot of people. It asks if you are just this power gamer who wants to get everything, or are you willing to leave this world behind? How do you feel about your own life choices – would you leave that all behind and start over? Some of that pain – having to give up all of your stuff, Sarah Morgan not loving you anymore, and so on – is supposed to make you feel all of that.”

Starfield is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

“If you look back at the beginning of Elder Scrolls, beginning of Fallout, they’re a little bit the same,” said Howard. “And then, you find an audience that loves that. So, I think it’s true that Fallout 76 and Starfield clearly – they’re creatively different than what we had done [before].”

“And we really wanted to do that. When you’re doing a certain type of thing for, in my case, 20 years, we want to try some other things and learn from that. We have ideas that we want to get out there.”

Ultimately, Howard said that he is glad that Fallout and The Elder Scrolls managed to garner massive audiences, which in turn has allowed Bethesda to take more creative risks with its other projects, like Fallout 76, and most recently, Starfield. He said, “We’re fortunate those games have found, in the scheme of things, giant audiences that let us keep doing things in them.”

Referring to Fallout 76 and Starfield, Howard said, “even though they’re a bit off the core path of the single-player games that we have been doing, we’re just fortunate to have the success that we’ve had with them.”

When it comes to Fallout, it is worth noting that Bethesda only bought up the franchise back in 2004. Before this, the franchise was developed by Interplay Entertainment. Bethesda’s work on the series started with Fallout 3, which came out on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in 2008. At the time, it offered a massive shift away from what the series was known for, switching from turn-based combat with an isometric view to a first-person RPG with shooter-adjacent gameplay. At this point, however, Bethesda has been in charge of the Fallout IP for longer than Interplay ever was.

Recently, Howard also revealed some details about the unique Unity ending of Starfield, and how it leads directly into New Game+ mode. Originally, players who picked the ending would get thrown into a new universe with all of their power and progression, but without any of their gear or items. With the Free Lanes update, players now have the chance to create an item that allows them to take up to 50 items along with them in their New Game+ run after the Unity ending.

“The Unity was our way of doing New Game+,” Howard explained. “It was us asking you this weird, deep question that I actually think got lost on a lot of people. It asks if you are just this power gamer who wants to get everything, or are you willing to leave this world behind? How do you feel about your own life choices – would you leave that all behind and start over? Some of that pain – having to give up all of your stuff, Sarah Morgan not loving you anymore, and so on – is supposed to make you feel all of that.”

Starfield is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review of its recent PS5 release. In the meantime, Bethesda is also working on The Elder Scrolls 6.

Since launch, several players have complained about bugs, crashes, and save file problems that left the game “unplayable”. While we did find the visuals on the console port to be slightly outshone by their PC counterpart, we didn’t encounter any of these issues on PS5 Pro.

Our review was fairly positive of the port, too, and players who’ve been able to sink time into the game like we did have come away relatively happy. Although a cursory glance at the comments in the tweet shows some areas that Bethesda could focus on after the hotfix goes live.

Those include some of the biggest complaints already being discussed, alongside suggestions about tweaks to collectibles, and reports of strange NPC behavior leading to amusingly unintended consequences. There are also questions about Upgraded PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution support, although the studio has yet to comment on that.

For our part, we’re hoping that the hotfix gets here as soon as possible so that all players finally get to play a very enjoyable romp through space.