The Elder Scrolls 6 is now being actively worked on by the majority of developers at Bethesda, studio head Todd Howard has confirmed. But here's the kicker: Bethesda isn't repeating the painful technical problems that plagued Starfield's eight-year development cycle.
Bethesda's game director Todd Howard says that The Elder Scrolls 6 has been smoother to develop than Starfield thanks to Creation Engine 3. The difference boils down to engine strategy. Bethesda spent the last several years bringing Creation Engine 2, which powers Starfield, up to Creation Engine 3, which is going to power Elder Scrolls 6 and beyond.
Starfield's development became a cautionary tale for the studio. On Starfield, the team struggled for a number of years in terms of going through the engine change. Developers were stuck "doing things in tandem with old and new" technology, creating friction between those building the tools and those creating the actual game content. This meant designers would sometimes have their work disrupted when tech teams made fundamental changes to how the engine worked.
Bethesda learned from that mess. The team doesn't feel disruptions when the game goes down, and the builds of the game are really consistently working every day; more days than ever before where the build is good, there's new stuff in it, and developers can play it. This sounds simple but represents a major operational shift. The team has done an incredible job in not just pushing what the engine is, but how it's integrated into the development cycle, helping reduce any kind of displacement between technical tool-making and the creative endeavour of design.
The studio's approach reflects a broader professional maturity. Instead of yanking the rug out from under content creators every time the engine got an upgrade, Bethesda built Creation Engine 3 to evolve alongside the team's daily work. Everyone on the team said 'we have to handle this engine updating and change much better so that we can be productive,' and Howard gave them an A+.
That said, building your own proprietary engine isn't for everyone. While many gamers are thankful that Bethesda isn't using Unreal Engine 5, many of the technical shortcomings in their games can be attributed to the company's Creation Engine. Howard has previously defended the choice, noting that Bethesda likes being in control of its own destiny, and the team has done a really incredible job in not just pushing what Creation Engine 3 is, but how it's integrated into the development cycle.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is being developed as a "classic Bethesda" role-playing game, comparable to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. That positioning matters, given that Howard says the next Elder Scrolls will be a return to classic Bethesda RPGs like Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 4, after the creative detour the studio took with Fallout 76.
No release window has been announced. Howard has said he regrets announcing The Elder Scrolls 6 so early in 2018, joking that people should "just pretend we didn't announce it" or that it "doesn't exist." Given that it's been eight years since that reveal, some scepticism about timelines seems warranted. But if Bethesda truly has tackled the engine coordination problem that slowed Starfield, the next Elder Scrolls could at least reach players in better technical shape than its space-faring predecessor did.