The Elder Scrolls 6 is one of the most anticipated games of the coming generation. However, with very little news since the first teaser trailer was released by Bethesda in 2018, the gaming giant will need to deliver a fresh new experience if it's going to live up to its legacy.
With more players looking to Obsidian’s upcoming Avowed as the spiritual successor to Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls 6 will need to offer long-time fans an experience they’ve never had before. Thanks to The Elder Scrolls Online, fans have already seen more of Tamriel than ever , so introducing new locations will likely not be enough. To truly deliver a new experience, The Elder Scrolls 6 needs to expand its character creation with the true variety of the world's lore.
The Races of Tamriel
The Elder Scrolls has always allowed players to pick from a wide array of races for their player character. However, many of these races are different types of humans or the archetypal fantasy elves – High Elves, Wood Elves, and Dark Elves. While the Khajiit and Argonians are more alien, they have also been in the franchise since Arena, so the array of available races needs expansion. Fortunately, The Elder Scrolls’ lore has a great range of fascinating races, many of which have made peripheral appearances in the franchise but have not been available as player characters.
Subraces like the Maomer, the pale island-dwelling Sea Elves, could make for some interesting player characters. These tropical elves were already introduced in The Elder Scrolls Online, where players learn that they have a contentious relationship with their High Elven brethren for settling on the Summerset Isles while they lived in the swampy lowlands of Pyandonea.
If TES 6 is going to give players a truly new RPG experience, however, it will need to expand its sub-races beyond elves and humans. The Khajiit have a huge array of sub-races depending on which moon cycle they were born into, and only very few have made it into the games, even with The Elder Scrolls Online’s Elsweyr expansion. These sub-races range in appearance from house cats with human intelligence to Wood Elves with tails. While introducing the less humanoid sub-races as player characters could prove difficult, there are still plenty of different types of Khajiit that would fit the main games.
More Possibilities and the Future of the Franchise
Tamriel is full of strange new races players have only just been introduced to. Skyrim’s Dragonborn DLC had the diminutive boar-riding Rieklings that could make for interesting role-playing opportunities. While Bethesda would need to make sure that all the species in the game were of roughly the same intelligence level as a human – only the Riekling Chief is shown to be able to speak common - the Rieklings demonstrate the breadth of unexplored possibilities which TES 6 should introduce if it’s going to live up to Skyrim’s immense legacy.
The unexplored continent of Akavir is known to contain other interesting beast-folk including the Tang Mo monkey-people and the Tsaesci, whose appearance is said to range from humanoid to snake-like. With greater scrutiny on the role of stats and race in fantasy, it is likely that TES 6 will continue the trend from Oblivion to Skyrim with race differences being more aesthetic than statistical.
However, it is also important that the player’s choice of race feels like it is organically reacted to in the world. Skyrim treated persecuted Argonian, Khajiit, and Dark Elf NPCs very differently to player characters of the same race. There is little explanation, for example, why the player is the only Argonian or Khajiit allowed into Windhelm, or why they can become a Stormcloak general with no comment despite the xenophobia of that faction.
If TES 6 is going to feel like the next generational step from Skyrim, it needs to expand the breadth of player options when it comes to character creations, but also the depth of reactivity in the world.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.