Todd Howard has expressed agreement with fans of Bethesda’s epic RPG series who wish that The Elder Scrolls 6 would hurry up already. Though the latest award-winning entry in the franchise still has an active community and is considered one of the greatest open-world games of all time, Skyrim recently turned 11 years old, having released in the archaic year of 2011.

Despite a teaser trailer for The Elder Scrolls 6 premiering in 2018, there have since been almost no updates from Bethesda about the elusive and highly anticipated game. In the years following, other franchises have released not one but two new entries, like God of War and its recently launched follow-up Ragnarok, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla, and Marvel’s Spider-Man and Miles Morales. Meanwhile, fans of The Elder Scrolls have been busily creating all kinds of mods to extend the lives of Oblivion and Skyrim.

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In Lex Fridman’s November 29 podcast, Bethesda Director Todd Howard revealed that he, too, wishes that the next entry in the long-lived franchise were here already. The episode begins with Fridman telling Howard to “blink once if you know when Elder Scrolls 6 is coming out but are not going to tell me.” The developer responded, “I have a vague idea” and then began laughing. The discussion about The Elder Scrolls 6 begins at timestamp 1:16:42.

During the interview, Howard expanded upon his initial response by clarifying that Bethesda “wants [the games] out too and I wish they didn’t take as long as they did.” The developer also stated that, if he could go back in time, it would never have been his plan to wait this long for another game. Howard pointed out that he has spent more time in the world of The Elder Scrolls than “anything else in my life probably” and acknowledged that he misses it. “I deeply love it. We [at Bethesda] all do. It’s a part of us.”

Howard’s professed uncertainty about when the next game in the franchise might make its appearance runs counter to recent speculation that some third parties are already privy to that information. During its investigation into Microsoft’s pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority shared a document that had the game’s release date redacted. This led some to theorize that the UK government knows the release date of The Elder Scrolls 6.

Either way, it seems like it will be quite a while before information about the next Elder Scrolls title is made public. Bethesda is busy adding some polish to its sci-fi adventure game Starfield, which is expected sometime in the first half of 2023. There’s also Fallout 5 somewhere on the distant horizon, although Howard has stated in the past that development of that game won’t begin until after The Elder Scrolls 6 is complete.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is currently in development.

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