The Elder Scrolls 6 "might" get an Oblivion-style shadow drop if Bethesda leaves it up to increasingly mysterious Todd Howard: "I like to just announce stuff and release it"

Todd Howard has been talking about The Elder Scrolls 6 since 2016, though he has been careful to never give us as much as a sniff of a release window. It turns out that we might be waiting forever to learn the game's launch date, as Bethesda might not announce it until it's already out.

In an interview with GQ, game director Todd Howard clearly wants to keep our anticipation tepid surrounding the launch of The Elder Scrolls 6, telling everyone that the release is "still a long way off," and that he's "preaching patience" to the fans. However, he does reveal a small nugget of information about the launch of the long-awaited sequel that we can cling to.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered shadow-dropped in April this year, and wasn't officially announced until the day before its launch. While rumors of its existence swirled for years before, the first confirmation of the game's existence was on April 21 when Bethesda announced that it would reveal initial details in a livestream just a day later, only to release it during the show.

Howard now says that "you might" call the Oblivion shadow drop "a test run," following the comment up by adding "it worked out well." While he doesn't specifically say it was a test run for the release of The Elder Scrolls 6, he does share his philosophy for how he hopes the launch will go. "I like to just announce stuff and release it," Howard says. "My perfect version – and I'm not saying this is going to happen – is that it's going to be a while and then, one day, the game will just appear."

In short, if you are a fan of The Elder Scrolls you can stand down for now, but expect the next game in the series to potentially launch very suddenly at some point over the next decade.

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