The Elder Scrolls 6 is still more than five years away

Last week, the FTC and Microsoft finally began butting heads in court over the Activision Blizzard King acquisition. During the hearing, many interesting details about Microsoft's acquisition of Zenimax/Bethesda came to light. In one part of the hearing, we learned that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still more than five years away. 

For keen industry followers, this news won't be too surprising. Bethesda has long maintained that it won't begin working on The Elder Scrolls 6 until after Starfield comes out, despite both games being announced at the same time in 2018. Since being acquired by Microsoft, that plan has not changed.

Listening in on the hearing, Axios reporter, Stephen Totilo, captured the full quote from Xbox head, Phil Spencer. While on the witness stand, Spencer explained that The Elder Scrolls 6 is “so far out it's hard to understand what the platforms will even be”, in response to a question over whether or not the game would ship on PlayStation.

Following this, he added that “We're talking about a game that's five-plus years away”. This indicates that we are unlikely to see The Elder Scrolls 6 until 2028-2029 at the earliest. This also means that unless Bethesda Game Studios expands or offers Fallout to another studio, we won't be seeing Fallout 5 until sometime in the 2030s.

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KitGuru Says: Game development timetables have only grown over the last couple of console generations. With where the industry is today, I'd be surprised if The Elder Scrolls 6 only took five years to make. Whether or not this sort of structure is sustainable is being debated amongst developers across the industry. 

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