This Elder Scrolls-like RPG gets better and better: It's got Morrowind's weirdness, Skyrim's NPC schedules, and it'll cost "$20 max"

The Lantern of the Laughless Saint, a self-described Elder Scrolls-like RPG being made by indie developers tired of waiting on The Elder Scrolls 6 to release, just keeps getting better and better.

Anyone feeling like they might not outlive The Elder Scrolls 6's development cycle probably felt immediately drawn to The Lantern of the Laughless Saint when developer NerveLabs proudly declared "we're just making our own" RPG since Bethesda is "taking so long." Even studio head Todd Howard seems to think the the latest Elder Scrolls game was announced too early, and NerveLabs is swooping in to give us all something to chew on while we wait.

In a new info dump shared to Reddit alongside an oddball add for the game that starts with someone saying "fuck you, Todd Howard," we learn a bunch of new details about the project that make it all even more enticing. If you like Morrowind's distinctly weird vibe, games that don't use AI anywhere in development, and $20 price tags, hold onto your hat.

NerveLabs responded to a number of comments on the above video, and pretty much every new detail made me perk up even more. For one, "we use no AI in development at all," the developer rightly boasts . Off to a good start, certainly.

"We're making it weird and unique like Morrowind," says the narrator in the above ad. Another box checked. "All skills upgrade, you can boost your sprinting skill and run faster for example. There's also a perk tree," the developer says. Go on...

NPCs are "semi simulated," NerveLabs says, but "not quite to the level of Skyrim." While NPC schedules aren't wholly unique to Bethesda games and have been a thing since the Ultima series pioneered them, the tech is one of many things making Bethesda RPGs feel particularly "alive," with the exception of Starfield likely due to technical shortcomings. Anyway, NerveLabs says The Lantern of the Laughless Saint will have NPC schedules too. "A shopkeeper for example will go to the bar to drink before he goes home to sleep, then return back to shop at 6am," the dev says.

Finally, the big selling point in this economy: "It will be reasonably priced! Prob $20 max and about 30 hours or more if you try to finish everything," says NerveLabs, adding that another game is in the works called The Holy Fool, and that'll be "much bigger."

For now, The Lantern of the Laughless Saint is "not too far out" and is planned for release this summer. You can wishlist it here.

Todd Howard agrees Starfield is "creatively different" than Bethesda's usual RPGs – but says The Elder Scrolls and Fallout were also divisive early on