Bethesda have repeatedly said over the past year or so that they’re nowhere close to being ready for a sequel to Skyrim, a potential The Elder Scrolls 6. We’ve heard time and again that it’s going to be years yet before we head anything about the game, and that Bethesda have a number of other projects that they’re going to focus on first. But there is always speculation that maybe the next Elder Scrolls game is closer than you think- would Gamescom 2017, which kicks off in just a week, the perfect time to make the highly anticipated announcement.
While there will be a number of people who will be hopeful about this, I believe the answer is a pretty solid no. Let’s put aside the fact that Bethesda have repeatedly denied being close to a release for The Elder Scrolls 6 for a second and consider this. Bethesda have recently been following a pretty cemented routine, with defined periods for marketing. Each of their games is launched mere months after their initial announcements, and Bethesda have already announced major releases such as Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, The Evil Within 2, and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider for this year. Surely, if they wanted to launch The Elder Scrolls this year, they would have announced it already. Going by this logic, it seems pretty safe to assume that an announcement isn’t going to come until at least 2018.
Then there’s something else to consider- the continued success Bethesda have had with the constant releases and re-releases of Skyrim, from the Remastered Edition on the PS4 and the Xbox One to the upcoming Switch and PSVR releases, Skyrim has showed no signs of stopping, in terms of sales or the grasp it still has on the market, despite the fact that at this point the game is six years old. Maybe this suggests that people are not quite done with Skyrim yet. And if Bethesda can get more money and profitability out of Skyrim while they really take their time to make sure The Elder Scrolls 6 is as good as fans would want, I don’t see what’s wrong with that.
What’s your take on this? Do you think it’s likely that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be revealed or even teased at Gamescom before? It seems unlikely, given how Bethesda have operated in the past, and all signs seem to point toward the fact that we’re going to have to wait a while yet before we finally step back into the series, but there’s always the chance that Bethesda do something completely unexpected. Tell us what you think in the comments section below.