The Elder Scrolls 6 is right up there with GTA 6 in terms of the most anticipated games, but we still know precious little about it, despite there being more than seven years between its reveal trailer and now. That said, Bethesda director and executive producer Todd Howard has just dropped one of the only hard details about the game itself so far, even if it ends up meaning very little in the long run.
In a genuinely fascinating video from content creator Any Austin, the question we've all been wondering for almost 15 years is answered: "How many trees are there in Skyrim?" We all know Skyrim's map is massive and densely populated with pine trees, but just how many are there? The answer is 46,430 trees, in case you just want to know. Any Austin calculated this "by walking the world, running real statistical surveys, and then checking the game files," and without the use of mods or wikis, but before he reached his conclusion, he managed to get Todd Howard himself to make his own guess, which turned out to be wildly inaccurate.
Howard guessed there are 111,111 trees in Skyrim, clearly a reference to the game having released in 2011, but what's even more interesting is his answer to the follow-up question he was asked: "Are there going to be more trees in The Elder Scrolls 6 than Skyrim, or less?" Howard replied with dramatic emphasis, "More... most definitely, more."
Again, there is a high likelihood that this means very little, but if you care to indulge me in a bit of tinfoil hat tomfoolery, we can get wildly irresponsible and pose a few theories about what, if anything, Howard is suggesting here.
The most immediately obvious assumption is that he's just saying The Elder Scrolls 6 is so much bigger than Skyrim, and thus will naturally have more trees regardless of what kind of terrain the map mostly consists of. To that point, one thing we can pretty safely assume about The Elder Scrolls 6 based on Howard's comment is that it doesn't take place in the desert, unless he's counting cacti as trees, but that would be crazy.
Now, if you want to get full Charlie Day Pepe Silvia meme weird, you can start looking at the map of Tamriel and taking stabs at which region The Elder Scrolls 6 will take place in, and my vote goes to Valenwood. The unofficial Elder Scrolls wiki describes the area as "a densely forested, sub-tropical region that encompasses the southwestern coastal plain of Tamriel." The wiki cites A Pocket Guide to the Empire as describing Valenwood as "a sea of endless green, a maze of foliage with half-hidden cities growing like blooms from a flower, the home of the Bosmer is Tamriel's garden." It also notes that Valenwood has "gigantic, migratory trees" that are so big that there are entire cities built within their branches.
Look, all I'm saying is, if Valenwood turns out to be a major location in The Elder Scrolls 6, it would only make Howard's comments – and peculiar emphasis on there being "most definitely" more trees in the game than Skyrim – make more sense, not less.
Does that mean there's even a remotely higher chance that Valenwood has any more to do with The Elder Scrolls 6 than any other region of Tamriel? Debatable, but it's fun to theorize.
