Todd Howard was asked about when The Elder Scrolls 6 would get released again. While he didn’t have an answer this time, he did take the time to clearly express his regret that it took them this long to even get started on making it.

Last June 2021, Todd revealed that The Elder Scrolls 6 is actually still in the very early design stages. That means Bethesda took over a decade since The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim before they even started in designing the game. While it isn’t as long a wait as, say, Metroid Dread, it’s definitely unusual for a game of that caliber, and especially for a game and franchise that was as successful as The Elder Scrolls.

Later that year, in November, Todd suggested that The Elder Scrolls 6 was still six years away. If Todd was actually correct about this, which would give it a longer wait for fans than for Duke Nukem Forever. We know that it won’t be as messy a production as that game had, it’s still quite a wait for those fans.

These are Todd’s comments upon being asked about The Elder Scrolls 6, edited for clarity.

“I wish it was soon. Yeah, like we want it out too, you know? I wish they didn’t take as long as they did but they do. And look, if I could go back in time, it would never have been my plan, to wait as long as it’s  taken for it.

Look, I spent more time there than anything else in my life, right. So we (Bethesda) deeply love it. We all do. It’s a part of us, and you know, when you aren’t doing it for a while, you really do miss it.

When I look at what we’re doing, uh, have planned for that game – and that was a meeting yesterday – I was like, I just want to play all this, right? But, you know, we’re going to make sure we do it right for everybody.”

Todd did have some interesting things to say as well about how their most popular games are being played for a very long time, and how they now have to put that in consideration in their development of their future games, including The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield.

“People are playing games for a long time. You know, Skyrim’s 11 years old. Still probably our most played game. And so we don’t see it slowing down. And people will probably be playing it 10 years from now also. So you have to think about. Okay, people are gonna play the next Elder Scrolls game for a decade, two decades. And that does change the way you think about how you architect it from the get-go.”

Todd already made it clear that Bethesda intends to make The Elder Scrolls 6 a clear improvement over Skyrim. Given how popular Skyrim itself is, it stands to reason that they would have to take a long time to meet those expectations.

Source: YouTube