The first game in the series, named simply “The Elder Scrolls” or “The Elder Scrolls: Arena”, was released in 1994. Since then, what began as an arena combat game has evolved into the vastly popular RPG that we know today. The real opening of The Elder Scrolls universe was the second game in the series: “The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall” released in 1996. Daggerfall introduced an open world where you could chat with npcs, buy your own house and make choices that lead to different endings.
A year after Daggerfall, Bethesda started working on “The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind”, but it was put on hold in 1997. According to Ken Rolston, lead designer of Morrowind, something was said approximating “We’re not ready for it, we don’t want to jump into this and fail” (referring to the technology available at the time). Instead, Bethesda released two other games based in the same universe, albeit unnumbered: “An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire” (1997) and “The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard” (1998). Though the saga was already popular among RPG fans at this time, it was the third title “The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind”, finally released in 2002 (6 years after Daggerfall), that really made this series come alive.
At this point the universe of The Elder Scrolls was well established and Bethesda was thriving. Three other minor releases came to life for mobile before the fourth large title “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion” which got released in 2006. During Oblivion’s development, Bethesda concentrated on creating a system with a more realistic storyline, believable characters, and meaningful quests. Every release of The Elder Scrolls introduced new features and improved upon its predecessors, culminating in what would become one of the most relevant RPGs of our time: “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”. Released in 2011, Skyrim became a universally loved game between fans of the series and newcomers. Bethesda continued to work on Skyrim, releasing 3 DLCs in the span of 2 years, but the game has managed to stay relevant until today largely thanks to its huge modding community.
Will there be an Elder Scrolls VI?
Yes! The Elder Scrolls VI is on the way. After years of speculation, Bethesda confirmed it’s under development during E3 in 2018. This Official Teaser was made public with the announcement:
The Elder Scrolls VI Release Date
Why did I start this post with the history of The Elder Scrolls releases? Because I want you to realise that time span between every release has been wider and wider with each of them. The Elder Scrolls VI wasn’t going to be different. And that’s a good thing if you care for quality over quantity. In fact, 9 years have already passed since the release of its predecessor. Nevertheless, Bethesda has been busy with the development of other titles during these years, to be clear (Including The Elder Scrolls Online).
| The Elder Scrolls | I | II | III | IV | V | VI |
| Release date | 1994 | 1996 | 2002 | 2006 | 2011 | 2022? |
Nine years is a lot, and fans are eager for the new release. Some might consider that the release of The Elder Scrolls: VI is already long overdue. But we’ve got bad news. At E3 2019, Todd Howard, executive producer at Bethesda, reprimanded our eagerness with this sentence:
“I think everyone should be very patient…”
—Todd Howard at E3 2019
Todd Howard also mentioned that their teams are still hard at work on Starfield, Bethesda’s first original RPG in 25 years, which is set in space. We know for a fact that The Elder Scrolls VI will be released after Starfield, and sadly this one doesn’t have a release date either. Months later, Matt Firor, game director at Zenimax, suggested that neither Starfield nor The Elder Scrolls VI would release until the next generation of consoles came along. Fortunately, this episode is not so far along the road, with the new PS5 being confirmed to launch by Christmas 2020 and the Xbox Series X being due by the end of 2020.
With that in mind, we are sure The Elder Scrolls VI will not come out during 2020. Instead, we conclude a much more reasonable release date for The Elder Scrolls VI would be early 2022.
So sit back and relax, because the release of The Elder Scrolls VI is years away. What features would you like it to have? Make sure to let us know in the comments below!
