[STEAM] The Elder Scrolls 6 Dev Says 'We're Going to Take Our Time and as Long as It Needs to Be Great,' Points to GTA 6 Delay as 'The Smartest Thing They Could Do'

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Bethesda developers including chief Todd Howard have issued an update on

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— but stopped short of confirming a release date.

When the six-year anniversary of The Elder Scrolls 6 announcement arrived in June last year, even

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The Elder Scrolls 6 is at least in production, with Bethesda confirming

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and "early builds" were available in March 2024.

Last month, amid increasing pressure from fans for some information on the game, Howard said

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. In an interview with

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to celebrate the release of Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, Howard said The Elder Scrolls 6 is “still a long way off,” adding: “I’m preaching patience. I don’t want fans to feel anxious.”

Now, speaking to

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, Howard — who is The Elder Scrolls 6 director and executive producer — and other Bethesda developers issued a more detailed update. Let’s start with Howard, who said of The Elder Scrolls 6:

“It’s progressing really well. The majority of the studio’s on 6, but I’ll say this: we always overlap. So, we’re very used to overlapping development. And we have long pre-productions on things so that we feel good about them. And it’s a process. We all wish it went a little bit faster — or a lot faster — but it’s a process that we want to get right.”

Taking the time to get The Elder Scrolls 6 right is a sentiment shared by studio design director Emil Pagliarulo, who pointed to GTA 6’s high-profile delays as the “smartest thing they could do.”

“What do fans really want?” he asked. “Do they want a game that comes out before it should and doesn’t meet their expectations? Or do they want the turkey that is in the oven for long enough to be delicious when it finally comes out of the oven, you know? That’s what I think people are going to want. So, we’re going to take our time and as long as it needs to be great.”

And finally, studio director Angela Browder hyped up the technological advances that make The Elder Scrolls 6 “this endless set of possibilities that is really, really exciting as a developer, but really, really exciting as someone who really likes to think about how far everything has come in our industry. It’s gonna be dope. It’s dope! [laughs]”

Alas, there remains no release window, which is what fans are waiting to hear right now. And fans are getting increasingly desperate for news. Earlier this month,

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.

You can understand why patience might be difficult for some though. In January this year,

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. Skyrim was released on November 11, 2011, and

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— 2,403 days afterwards. It is now seven-and-a-half years since the announcement, and we’re no closer, it seems, to the release of the game.

In the GQ article, Howard once again admitted that it had taken too long to get The Elder Scrolls 6 out the door, but did tease a The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered-style shadowdrop — without confirming anything.

“I do like to have a break between them, where it isn’t like a ‘plus one’ sequel,” Howard said of making The Elder Scrolls games again. “I think it’s also good for an audience to have a break — The Elder Scrolls has been too long, let’s be clear. But we wanted to do something new with Starfield. We needed a creative reset.” Bethesda is currently playtesting The Elder Scrolls 6, Howard revealed.

“I like to just announce stuff and release it,” Howard continued. “My perfect version — and I’m not saying this is going to happen — is that it's going to be a while and then, one day, the game will just appear.” The Oblivion Remastered shadowdrop was “a test run,” Howard teased. “It worked out well.”

Earlier this year it was confirmed that

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after a remarkable charity campaign that raised more than $85,000 for Make-A-Wish.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on

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at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld.

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