If there’s one game I’m hungry for this decade, it’s a new chapter in The Elder Scrolls. 2011’s Skyrim still stands as one of my absolute favourite sandboxes, a glorious Nordic adventure filled with swords, sorcery and ye Daedric gods so many damn loading screens. A sixth Elder Scrolls game is on the way, but as usual Bethesda is keeping tight-lipped on anything related to it.
Fie on them! I’ve been digging around reddit and I came upon this treasure trove of information, with the original poster claiming to be close with Bethesda. I recommend pinching this much salt before reading further:
Full of sodium? Great! Don’t blame me for kidney stones. Anyway, here’s a breakdown of the info on The Elder Scrolls VI, which I’m genuinely hoping is all true. Except for the part about the game being years AND YEARS away:
- The Elder Scrolls VI takes place in High Rock and Hammerfell
- The landmass glimpsed in the first trailer is Yokuda, the archipelago remnants of the Redguard’s homeland
- The approach for High Rock is an area that is “more closely leaning into Mark Jones’s various concept work from Battlespire”
- High Rock is described as a mystical world, quests have political intrigue and a whole lot of magic
- No sword-singing in Elder Scrolls 6, as Bethesda wants to give players more options than just “a sword-summoning Jesus”
- Players will embark on a quest to stop the Thalmor from exploiting tensions between Hammerfell and High Rock while they unmake all of creation using the Direnni Tower
- A new quest system is being worked on, one similar to radiant quests but on “steroids”
- There’ll be rescue quests, fetch quests and the like, but the NPCs attached to them all have their own lives to lead and unique behaviours in every playthrough of the game
- Some NPCs will be programmed to follow certain functions though, to help move the plot along
- Bethesda is aiming to keep loading screens to a bare minimum, such as for entering dungeons, the player home, and fast travel
- Player homes are meant to be filled with the fruits of your adventures, to create your own custom space
- Magic is being beefed up
- Plenty of new spells are being added and inspiration is being taken from player mods like Phendrix
- Alteration magic now allows you to alter the reality around you, such as summoning giant spikes, slowing down time or repairing armour
- Illusion magic allows you to trick people into helping you by making them think you’re someone else or use calm, fury, fear, muffle, and invisibility to your advantage
- Restoration magic has been inspired by Dark Souls to better suit Paladin players, and now uses sunlight to blind enemies, burn them and even cause disease damage
- Weapons can be buffed with frost, shock, or fire damage
- Levitation magic is also back, alongside spell-making
- Crafting is similar to Fallout 4
- Weapons can be modified to suit your style of play, such as making a mace heavier or transforming it into a morningstar with spikes so that you can inflict bleed damage
- Swords can be customised to be longer at the cost of reduced speed, and vice versa
- You can even modify your hilt so that you don’t lose your weapon so easily
- Guilds and factions are being fine-tuned to have a more unique identity and more interesting quests
- The Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Fighter’s Guild and Mages Guild (in a new more fragmented form) will all return
- Vampires are also back, each with different clans and levels of vampirism that allow for some members to exist in the day
- If you choose this path, there’ll be a lot of blood magic to experiment with, at the cost of some NPCs attacking you on-site depending on your level of Vampirism infection
- There’ll be fighter, mage and stealth vampire courts to choose from
- No DLC plans just yet, although those plans will change the closer the game gets to completion and allows for Bethesda to look towards the future
- Bad news: The Elder Scrolls VI will have a release date of November 2025.
Honestly, I might just enter a cryosleep tube so that I can wake up in a few years and get my groove on as a nigh-unstoppable vampire lord who wields terrifying blood magic against peasants. Prepared to be repressed, ye proles.
Last Updated: March 5, 2020
Gareth Runnalls
March 5, 2020 at 13:03
Look, as long as there are still dragons (or some equivalent) that I can sneak up to and murder with a single swing of my dagger, I’ll be happy AF!
Quentin Huggett
March 5, 2020 at 13:03
I would like to play this but i took an arrow to the knee
Alien Emperor Trevor
March 5, 2020 at 13:03
For the love of god please improve the combat this time around, swing swing swing while backpedaling is boring af fam, and eventually you give up and become a stealth archer.
HairyEwok
March 5, 2020 at 13:03
Stealth shoots arrow in guards head…… Who goes there…… I guess I’m just hearing things.
As Todd says… It just works.
Thomas Jenkins
March 6, 2020 at 05:15
please. illusion mage is where it’s at. why fight at all when you can make enemies into friends, then make them kill each other while you watch?
Guz
March 5, 2020 at 15:56
Well after the fallout from the last fallout I’m not getting my hopes up,
They are going to monetize the single player experience
Guz
March 5, 2020 at 15:56
Well after the fallout from the last fallout I’m not getting my hopes up,
They are going to monetize the single player experience
Alexander Cranson
March 6, 2020 at 21:13
I don’t think they heavily monetized Fallout4, the last single player game they released.
Son of Banana Jim
March 5, 2020 at 16:48
Bethesda….
That’s all I’m going to say.
SagatatiaRZA
March 5, 2020 at 17:35
Me: this looks good. Good. Approved. Mhm. Go on.
“November 2025”
Me:Go to hell satanspawn nobody believes you
Cameron Rogers
March 6, 2020 at 04:46
I can see the 2025 being true.
Bethesda said they have TWO major releases planned before the next elder scrolls hits. (This was said by Todd after they announced six).
Starfield is one and that’s still a bit off, and the other mystery title isn’t even known by name yet. I’d picture starfield probably being announced around E3 this year AND MAYBE being a launch title for PS5/Xbox next. The mystery title will probably be around 2023 or so.
Maya
March 6, 2020 at 08:16
Yeesh, I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want weapon crafting. I feel like it will keep them from working on other better features. I’d rather have more unique weapons that are found in the world
artbyjcm
March 6, 2020 at 21:13
I like having more reasons to explore. Quests feel so much more rewarding. I have a bad feeling if they emphasize crafting too much it will instead feel like you are just grinding for resources to make weapons.
Opal-Selene
March 7, 2020 at 10:32
No way, they need to leave that open for modders. Some people make really cool mods, and it personalizes the game to your liking, let alone the artistry that it takes to make those. Crafting your own weapons is awesome! I personally, much rather build and bulk up my weapons in addition to specialty weapons. And some of the specialty weapons only reach a certain level and stops (i.e. Ebony sword that Mephala gives you).
Stay open-minded. They’re beefing up the spells (and incantations to cast them.) Besides, if your skill tree isn’t lit up in certain areas, to help you not use so much magicka in higher power spells, it will drain quickly. And if you don’t use weapons and you’re in a middle of a fight- you’re going to die (unless you have god mode on) and have to restart over from your last save. Let alone they won’t have Aura Whisper in the game, and detect life can drain your magicka quickly if it isn’t high enough. I personally like to see how many enemies I have to destroy before I reach them. They need to keep it balanced, because you’re doing everything out of your personal choice. And it would be unfair if they didn’t include smithing. The Mighty Alik’r have curved swords for a reason, and we should have the option of crafting it. What they really need to include is melee attacks, that all races can do. ‘Cause sometimes when you punch an NPC and you’re not in a bar fight or Orc Chieftain challenge… you get in trouble with the guards even though they didn’t over hear what was said to you. Sometimes a girl just really wants to teach a proud flaming imbecile or a corrupt vile business owner a lesson. (Nazeem and Maven Black-Briar)- and allow to the player to challenge that rude citizen to a fight (or sucker punch) and not get in trouble for it. And if they don’t I’m sure someone will make a mod for it 🙂
**All is meant well and with a kind calm tone.
artbyjcm
March 6, 2020 at 21:13
Losing weapons? Breaking armor? I’m not a fan of having to worry all the stuff I worked so hard to find will just vanish and/or break. I don’t want to have to reload a save from two hours prior when I realize my favorite mace just fell off at some point.
If these rumors are true, I really really hope Bethesda retains the modding ability previous Elder Scrolls games had so I can at least mod these features out of the game.
Alexander Cranson
March 6, 2020 at 20:50
2025 seems a bit far away, but that’s before you consider the effects of enchantments and potions. If Bethesda simply ran the Fortify Restoration loop a few times, brewed an OP Enchanting potion, then enchanted all their programmers’ coffee cups with Fortify Caffeination, then I think we’d see the game out nearer to mid 2022.
Cazmo
March 6, 2020 at 21:39
Sounds like a little bit of Morrowind is coming back! Levitation, armor degradation, etc…
Keith Brozic
March 7, 2020 at 00:24
Can they please revamp the combat system to maybe be more exciting than minecraft. I remember years ago steam had a game called the heroes of might and magic, while not perfect it was leaps and bounds better than the joke combat in skyrim.
Jessica Ruthless Fatale
March 7, 2020 at 08:13
I really enjoyed being the Listener of the dark brotherhood, I don’t know how they’re going to top that story line in ES6.
And I like weapon crafting and really enjoyed smithing in skyrim (especially since one of my characters is married to Avulstien Gray-Mane- gotta keep that family tradition going).
Can’t wait to see how beefed up the spells (and incantations to cast them) will be, and everything else. I will no doubt be a jack of all trades again.