The Elder Scrolls 6 is still a long way off, and there’s still any concrete date on Starfield, which is Bethesda’s next big release. While Bethesda does have some pretty long development cycles, even TES6 news is confirmed to still be years away. With the hype that’s going to surround TES6, it’s likely that Bethesda is going to want to take its time to make sure the game lives up to that hype.
With that said, many may be wondering what exactly is The Elder Scrolls 6 going to look like. The comparison that everyone on the planet is going to draw is, of course, to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. One big issue that TES6 that will need to consider is how it’s going to need to be a different enough game to Skyrim to subvert/meet expectations, while still being similar enough to be recognizable as a game in the same series.
TES6 is going to be under a magnifying glass immediately upon release, and it’s going to have some serious shoes to fill. Practically every time Skyrim releases again, it becomes one of the top-selling games on the platform. That kind of long-term success is unusual for a single-player game, and that means that Bethesda is going to have to look at TES6 as a game that will actually last 10 years.
While The Elder Scrolls 6 should embrace the franchise’s formula, it’s going to need to surpass Skyrim in some kind of way in order to be seen as a success. The technological gap between these two games will definitely be of some help: Skyrim came out in 2011, with TES6 definitely coming out more than a decade after. Players did get the Skyrim Special Edition, which updated the graphics somewhat, and the modding community has been hard at work ever since release improving the graphics of the original game, but the point remains. TES6 is going to be a more graphically impressive game than Skyrim because of the technological advancements made in the years since Skyrim’s release.
But graphics are far from everything in a game. Gameplay and worldbuilding are what’s going to keep players coming back, and these are going to have to take some steps forward from Skyrim, as well. Todd Howard has said that the Bethesda game engine has received its biggest overhaul since Oblivion which is good news for TES6, and Starfield, for that matter, but the exact impact remains to be seen.
Skyrim’s gameplay, and in particular its combat, were acceptable when it was released, but compared to many games today, it would be found a bit lacking. TES6 is going to need to improve Skyrim’s combat with some more depth, and possibly some more options, as well.
TES6 could really use an overhaul of the magic system, as well. Magic in Skyrim was fun and did have a surprising bit of variety to it, but at the end of the day, most of what players did was simply launch fire, ice, or electricity at their enemy. Instead, there are a ton of possibilities when it comes to magic in these games. Bethesda has created (and published) some of the most free-form and inventive games out there, and it could go further than any game has yet with TES6, especially considering TES6’s map size has some interesting implications for magic.
TES6 could also do a lot to improve traveling through the world, as compared to Skyrim. While Skyrim had a sizeable and interesting world to explore, it wasn’t necessarily a super immersive world when it came to resting a character. There was no worthwhile benefit to finding a place for a character to sleep for the night, making most players’ characters a sleepless lunatic that survives on violence and questing alone. TES6 could make travel more exciting if players had to actually plan out their travel, ensuring that there will be a place(s) to stop along the way to rest up before completing their journey.
A game that could give fans a hint at Bethesda’s evolving gaming ideas will likely be Starfield. Fans haven’t gotten a glimpse at how Bethesda plans to structure a single-player game since Fallout 4 in 2015, and while these two games aren’t likely going to be similar on every front, it’s probable that there are going to be some similarities that show through, such as the procedurally-generated map in Starfield and TES6.
Starfield could act as a proving ground for some new stuff that Bethesda wants to use in its games, but isn’t as sure about including in TES6. That’s not to say Bethesda cares less about Starfield than TES6, as Starfield is a game that could change Bethesda forever, just that it probably has some new ideas that it wants to include in Starfield. And if it works out, those ideas could be refined and perfected for TES6.
Starfield is also going to give players a glimpse at how the Creation Engine has progressed since Skyrim. It’ll be the first Bethesda game on the PS5 and Xbox Series X, giving us some kind of idea of what Bethesda is capable of achieving on the new engine and hardware. With Bethesda’s recent acquisition by Microsoft, it’s given Bethesda quite a bit more resources to put into its future work. For fans of Skyrim and those looking forward to TES6, that’s an exciting prospect, indeed.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is currently in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.
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