While Bethesda had confirmed that it has been working on The Elder Scrolls 6 as far back as 2018, the company has shown little more about the highly-anticipated open-world RPG. In an interview with Esports Insider, former lead artist at the studio, Nate Purkeypile, has revealed that Bethesda announced the title quite early just to make sure that fans of The Elder Scrolls weren’t mad at it. He also acknowledged that, since it has been so long since the last game in the franchise—Skyrim originally came out back in 2011—Bethesda has internal pressure to make sure that the next game is well received.
“My assumption was always that we were announcing Starfield, and it had been so long already since Skyrim that we needed to make sure people were not just pissed at us. It’s a very expensive way to do that, though. Those trailers are not cheap,” said Purkeypile when asked about The Elder Scrolls 6‘s announcement.
“I would imagine that they will take a while to deliver it because there’s so much pressure behind that title, and I think it’s been proven with Starfield that they’re finally okay, actually delaying stuff. That was not really the case early on. On Skyrim, it was like, ‘It’s coming out on 11/11/11’ and we were like, what?! Oh boy, no pressure.”
As for the kinds of pressure that Bethesda is facing internally for The Elder Scrolls 6, Purkeypile noted that it isn’t economic pressure to get the game out by a certain deadline. Rather the pressure revolves around making sure that it is a high-quality release.
“I think there is less economic pressure to just get Elder Scrolls VI out on a date, but there is more economic pressure to actually make sure it’s good, and I think that’s a good thing,” he continued. “That’s healthy so long as they’re also honest with the team about that. That’s something that can happen where the team get told here’s the date, we got to the date and psych! It’s later. And everybody knows that’s coming sometimes.”
As for whether or not Bethesda has some announcements planned for both The Elder Scrolls 6 as well as a new Fallout game, and is simply waiting until the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 to gauge audience reaction, Purkeypile said that the studio typically tends to work on its own timeline. This, he said, was due to the fact that its games are so different from what we see in the gaming market.
“I feel like they’re just going to be in their own universe doing whatever because the titles are very different,” he said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of audience overlap and all, but just because one game flops doesn’t mean another will necessarily. There can be a whole bunch of reasons that happen.”
Back in December, director Todd Howard had spoken about The Elder Scrolls 6, noting that development on the game is “progressing really well.” He also confirmed that the majority of the studio is working on the fantasy RPG, with some also working on other projects at the same time. Design director Emil Pagliarulo acknowledged that it “can be frustrating for players who are dying to play a game,” but the studio isn’t putting the same kind of time pressure on itself as fans of the RPG series have.
