After venturing into uncharted territory with Starfield and Fallout 76, Bethesda wants to experiment less with Elder Scrolls 6 and return to the studio’s classic style.
It’s been almost eight whole years since The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced at E3 2018 in Los Angeles – yes, E3 still existed back then.
In the meantime, we have grown significantly older, but we are still no closer to the release of the Skyrim sequel. The role-playing game is now in full production at developer Bethesda, but cautious estimates suggest that we will have to wait until at least 2028 for a release.
However, lead developer Todd Howard now has some good news for fans of the series: after the studio moved away from its classic role-playing concept with the space role-playing game Starfield and the online experiment Fallout 76, TES 6 will mark the end of the experiments!
Among other things, the studio has spent the last few years improving the Creation Engine 2, on which Starfield is also based, and developing it further into the Creation Engine 3. This new version will power Elder Scrolls 6 and future titles, according to Howard. The Creation Engine and the resulting sandboxyness of the game worlds are a factor that fans appreciate so much about the classic Bethesda role-playing games. border-right: gray 1px solid; border-bottom: gray 1px solid; border-left: gray 1px solid” height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/sX4rKpB97L4″ frameborder=”0″ width=”560″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”>
In the interview, Howard also assures us that the majority of the people who developed Skyrim are still at Bethesda. On top of that, many new faces have joined the studio to bring their experience from other areas of the industry to Elder Scrolls 6. We have included the entire interview with Todd Howard above.
However, Howard does not reveal any details about the development of Elder Scrolls in the interview. At the end of 2025, he reported that the role-playing game was already in a playable state and was being thoroughly tested by its developers on a daily basis. However, playable does not mean finished. According to Howard at the time, it will probably take “quite a while” before Elder Scrolls 6 reaches its final state. This time around, the developers want to take the time to develop a game that lives up to fans’ expectations. These are big words, considering the enormous pressure from the gaming community to deliver on the next Elder Scrolls installment – but Todd Howard is certainly not known for underestimating the potential of his games.
However, the lead developer has since come to realize one thing: in hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have announced The Elder Scrolls 6 so early.
