The Elder Scrolls 6 is a long ways away, but the next title in Bethesda’s landmark fantasy series is already hotly anticipated. This is despite the lack of any real news in the two years following the game’s 2018 announcement. As rumors, hopes, and opinions fly back and forth, many are beginning to wonder if The Elder Scrolls 6 will break away from the classic structure of its predecessors.
One of the systems that the new title should look at updating is joinable factions. The Elder Scrolls games have always featured factions for players to sign up with, generally each with their own associated quest-line. However, the available factions in the two latest titles, Oblivion and Skyrim, have grown a lot more simplistic in their function. Perhaps, with a new Elder Scrolls on the way, it’s time for Bethesda to think about tweaking its classic system.
Out of the many factions in the Elder Scrolls series, there are four that most often take a primary role. These are the Fighters Guild, the Mages Guild, the Thieves Guild, and the Dark Brotherhood. In Skyrim, they’re a little different, as the Companions replace the Fighter’s Guild, and the College of Winterhold replaces the Mages Guild. However, these changes are largely in spirit only, as in the story the replacements fill much the same role as their equivalents. These four factions are popular in the series because they represent four of the games’ primary playstyles: the warrior, the wizard, the thief, and the assassin. In Skyrim, the big four almost act like tutorials for their respective playstyles, encouraging players to try new techniques and skills.
However, Bethesda using the factions in this way can rob them of a lot of their potential. There’s a long-running Skyrim meme about how ridiculous it is that a single person can somehow be the leader of all four factions simultaneously, with this being justified as “game logic,” of course. The openness of the big four also attracts other oddities, like the fact that it’s possible to become Archmage of the College of Winterhold with only the most rudimentary grasp of magic. While the big four are useful in helping new players to explore the game, perhaps it’s time that the Elder Scrolls games introduced a little more nuance into their faction system.
Although they didn’t make it to Skyrim, previous Elder Scrolls titles have experimented with more selective factions. That is to say, factions that won’t just take any old Elder Scrolls main character that shows up at their front door. In Daggerfall and Morrowind, players who wished to advance through their faction needed to have the correct skills to do so. This system was dropped in Oblivion, which introduced the concept of quest-based advancement.
After two games using the simplistic quest-advancement system, it would be interesting to see Elder Scrolls 6 find a new approach. The quest-advancement may suit players who only play through the game once, as it allows them to experience all the content with a single character, but it also limits replayability.
Getting rid of the idea of open-door factions also opens up some intriguing possibilities. It would really break the mold if Elder Scrolls 6 included factions that were at odds with each other, or that had stringent entry requirements. This could give joining a faction the same sense of achievement as finishing its quest-line. After all, it doesn’t make sense that small, elite factions like the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild would take a recruit without any kind of stealth aptitude. A slightly broader spread of factions, intended to be accessed by the mid-game, and each with challenging entry requirements, could really mix up the formula.
All the faction quests in Skyrim end up with the Dragonborn becoming leader of the faction in question. Depending on how much a player has prioritized that faction’s story, this can happen very early in their playthrough, even within their character’s first few weeks in Skyrim. It’s a little odd, then, that there’s so little content available after becoming leader. Having received the Robe of the Archmage or the Shield of Ysgramor, players have no opportunity to enjoy their hard-earned position of power. Randomly-generated assignments can still be picked up from the Dragonborn‘s new subordinates, but there’s nothing special about them to indicate a rise in status.
It would be very interesting to see some actual content after finishing the faction quests in The Elder Scrolls 6. After all, most players aim to do them before the main plot, so why shouldn’t there be content for the days and weeks that follow their completion? This could introduce new systems into the game, allowing players to manage their chosen faction, recruit new members, hand out assignments, and expand their influence.
This is just one of many different ways that Bethesda could mix up the faction system for The Elder Scrolls 6. It may be a staple of the Elder Scrolls series, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t use a fresh approach. Of course, there’s little doubt that fans will be seeing some variation of the Fighters Guild, Thieves Guild, Mages Guild, and Dark Brotherhood in TES6. That being said, it will all come down to how they’re used, and how players interact with them.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.
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