The teams behind The Elder Scrolls 6 and The Elder Scrolls Online work as "equal partners" and share lore responsibilities.
In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Matt Firor - director of The Elder Scrolls Online - talked about how lore works when working on one of several The Elder Scrolls games. In particular, the developer touched on the relationship between ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda Game Studios who are both currently developing titles in the series.
When asked by the outlet if his team's knowledge of the RPG's lore has been required for The Elder Scrolls 6, Firor said: "We do talk to the Bethesda guys all the time about lore, but also I mean, they made Fallout 76, and when you make online games at the same company right there's obviously a lot of talk and play testing, and stuff like that."
"So it’s not ‘official’ in the kind of way you're saying it, but there is lots of talk back and forth, all the time, just about games," Firor explains. "What's good, what's not, and not just our games but other people's like 'have you played Palworld?' There are those Slack threads that have all of that in them, and the collaboration just kind of gets built from there. And player trends are always shared amongst the groups, and anyone at Bethesda has access to our dashboards."
Despite working on different areas of the Bethesda IP, the developer also said that the two studios have a "partnership" when it comes to The Elder Scrolls: "They're the lore holders. And we have, you know, a lore master that does nothing but make sure that the communication is correct - things like place names and spellings are the things that lore lives and dies on. And we work every day with them, doing that kind of stuff."
The last we heard about the upcoming RPG was that "early builds" of The Elder Scrolls 6 were being played at Bethesda as of last month. The update came from the developer, who said The Elder Scrolls 6 is still "in development" and that it's giving the team "the same joy, excitement, and promise of adventure" as the other games in the series.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, The Elder Scrolls 6 won't be out until at least 2026.
