Yesterday, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said she'd had a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6, teasing its subtitle in an asterisk-filled tweet. Hinting at the scale of its open world, as well as its story, it looks a lot like Sharma has seen some kind of milestone demo, steered by Bethesda leadership, likely a step up from what fellow Xbox leader Matt Booty saw earlier in the summer when he said the next Elder Scrolls was "coming along well." That milestone likely means The Elder Scrolls 6 is in a playable state, and we've finally reached the beginning of the end of Bethesda's long, self-inflicted nightmare.
Sharma's tweet is far from meaning that the Skyrim sequel is just over the horizon, let alone close to release. But it does mark a major step in drawing to an end a deeply unfortunate era for one of the RPG giants.
Presentations like this are an integral part of game development at this scale, a chance for those at the top to check that the work they're paying for is actually getting done. These milestones are so clear-cut that union reps were able to organize a high-profile protest around Sharma's arrival at Bethesda yesterday. It's likely that what Sharma saw is a heavily-scripted 'slice' of The Elder Scrolls 6 that emphasizes its key features - think something like the Witcher 4 State of Unreal presentation, which looked at tech and world-building more than character or gameplay. But the fact that Bethesda has reached this point – and that Xbox is starting to talk about it publicly – remains a pretty big deal.
It's been more than eight years since Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls 6. In that time we've had little concrete information other than the original 'trailer' and a static image to hint at its setting. That's fewer teasers about the actual content of this game than the number of times Todd Howard has had to publicly apologize for announcing it too early.
Other games are a factor in that long wait. Bethesda can't really be accused of resting on its laurels since Skyrim – multiple remasters are proof enough of that, and the releases of Starfield and Fallout 76 have obviously slowed down progress on a new Elder Scrolls game. But it's easy to forget that all three of those projects were announced at the same time. Fallout 76 was technically unveiled a month or so before Starfield and TES6, but Bethesda's E3 2018 showcase lifted the lid on three substantial RPGs at once. It was always going to be a long wait, even before complications like Fallout 76's launch and remote pandemic-era working reared their heads.
The result of that triple-whammy is that The Elder Scrolls 6 has become the albatross around Todd Howard's neck. Skyrim was a generation-defining phenomenon, and no new IP or multiplayer spin-off was likely to sate fans' desire for its successor. Knowing that game was lurking somewhere towards the bottom of Todd's to-do list hasn't made the intervening eight years go any faster. Instead, as Xbox ceded the last battles of the console war to PlayStation, struggling under the weight of billions in acquisition costs and no successes material enough to pay for them, Bethesda's deliberately slow production times were an increasing problem. And when Starfield failed to make the cultural splash Microsoft needed, the absence of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout became an even larger problem.
Finally, that problem is starting to abate. First with a suite of new Fallout projects to fill the gaping void that still awaits us before Fallout 5, and now with real, genuine signs of life from The Elder Scrolls 6. The wait is likely to be long - I'd be shocked if this wasn't a cross-gen Project Helix launch title. But after nearly a decade since its initial reveal, any sense that this most long-awaited of projects is drawing nearer is an important win for Xbox - one that could prove crucial for its transition into its next generation.
