It has been almost exactly three years since Starfield was first announced at the E3 in 2018, alongside The Elder Scrolls 6. Over the years, the details and official information provided were very scarce for both games, with the latter being relegated to release only a while after Starfield does. Most of the information online on Starfield comprised either rumors, educated guesses, and speculation on the things Todd Howard said during several of his interviews, including the influence of Elon Musk's Space X Program.
However, today marks the end of the silence on Starfield, and Bethesda finally showed more of its upcoming space adventure game. While there was no gameplay shown today for Starfield, the game finally does have a release date: November 11, 2022. While this is great news for all Starfield fans out there, it may mean that nothing new will actually come out for The Elder Scrolls 6 up until next year, or possibly even later than that.
Starfield May Be Dimming The Elder Scrolls 6's Light
Starfield was introduced as a brand new universe, meaning that there could be space for it to become its own franchise with time. In the meanwhile, The Elder Scrolls 6 was not shown today and that means that next year's E3 could see some Starfield gameplay and be mainly focused on that. The implications of this are that The Elder Scrolls 6 may be shown next year with another short teaser, the same treatment that Starfield just got, and that in turn could lead to TES 6 being much further away than fans would like.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is easily one of the most anticipated games of the past few years, but it does carry the onus of being the sequel to Skyrim, which was extremely successful and became even better over time thanks to its dedicated modding community. Skyrim was a colossal game, and The Elder Scrolls 6 has to be at least as big as its predecessor, especially considering that Avowed is coming at some point. Many already consider it in-house competition, though of course, no one can really know what any of this eventually looks like.
Starfield's Release Date Is Bad News For The Elder Scrolls 6
Skyrim celebrates 10 years since its release this November, which makes the wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 all the more excruciating, but this anniversary could mean good news for the series. In fact, it's not impossible that a small update will come on TES 6 on the 10th anniversary of Skyrim, but fans shouldn't have high hopes about that.
Still, it is plausible that Starfield did have an impact on The Elder Scrolls 6's production and development, meaning that the fact it is not releasing for yet another year and a half pretty much silences TES 6 for quite a while. Initially, many fans thought that Starfield would come this year, and then The Elder Scrolls 6 would follow next year or early 2023, but that is out the window.
Where Starfield did receive some small updates since its announcement, this year also marks exactly 3 years of nothing for The Elder Scrolls 6. Nothing is currently known about the game, not even the region it will be based on. Thus, the chances of The Elder Scrolls 6 being actually revealed soon, or even next year, are extremely slim.
Starfield releases November 11, 2022, for PC and Xbox Series X.