Earlier this week, Bethesda Game Studios fans feared the worst for their mods as the studio revealed that it would be launching a brand-new Fallout 4 update with "Creations improvements" – and, much to many fans' dismay, another for Skyrim later on down the line.

Well, the Fallout 4 patch has officially landed, and surprisingly well, quadrupling the number of mods players can have and more – and along the way, so has Bethesda's first tease of what's to come to Skyrim, its more fantastical RPG.

"On Thursday, August 20, we will deploy a patch to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition that will increase console mod storage limits and bring more Creations improvements," it reveals in a new post online.

It continues, delivering the news I'd argue we all wanted to hear: our load orders will not be broken by the update… ideally, anyway. "While this update should not affect load orders," as Bethesda writes, "we do encourage players to log into your save game if you haven't done so in a while as a precaution."

I, for one, will certainly be doing so – but I'm thrilled that the Skyrim patch isn't coming with the same sort of warning the Fallout 4 one did.

Unsurprisingly, though, folks are still worried. As one person comments, "Ah nah man. My perfect load order gone." Others are simply curious about the update, and how closely it'll resemble the Fallout 4 patch, which upped the mod limit by a lot.

A fan asks, "Will this allow custom file type and assets for creations on PlayStation as well? Akin to how the recent Fallout 4 update allowed?" Hopefully, anon. Hopefully.

Various replies show that players are far more positive about the Skyrim update than they were the Fallout 4 patch initially (likely because the latter has launched and Bethesda is saying this one shouldn't bust our load orders), with one reading, "THANK YOU! I was hoping this update was coming."

I do personally wonder how much those "mod storage limits" will be increased myself, honestly – but I suppose I'll find out for sure tomorrow.

Here's everything we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 if you're craving something new from Bethesda – we certainly are.

Stop me if you've heard this before, but Bethesda Game Studios is releasing yet another new Creations-related update for Fallout 4 today – and sadly, it looks like Skyrim isn't safe either, as the developer plans to roll one out for its beloved fantastical RPG, too.

Bethesda is well-known for its mod-breaking updates, with the Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition itself launching to "Mostly Negative" reviews on Steam thanks to how it… well, broke things left, right, and center last year.

The studio has a patch up its sleeve for Fallout 4 today that'll probably see its age-old tradition of malfunctioning mods continue, too, "focusing on general Creations improvements" – in other words, paid mods.

"As a precaution," Bethesda warns in its online post on the patch, "prior to these updates we encourage players to log into your game save if you haven't done so in a while or manually save your load order." Oh boy… more fumbling about with my load order. "Once your load order is saved, you'll be able to re-download your entire Creations list at once when the update is live."

That's not all, either. There's Skyrim-shaped chaos inbound as well.

"Additionally," as Bethesda writes, "we are also working on a Skyrim update with details to come soon." While the developer doesn't specify what said update might be, I'm betting it'll be just as annoying – because of course it will.

Judging by the comments, it's safe to say I'm not the only person annoyed by the two RPGs' coming updates, as folks brace themselves for the worst.

"OH MY FUCK THEY ARE DOING IT AGAIN," exclaims one disgruntled fan. "BREAK ALL THE FUCKING MODS FOR CREATION SLOP. FUCK YOU!" Another questions, "A SKYRIM UPDATE? For the love of god, please stop updating and breaking our load orders."

Others beg Bethesda to "leave Fallout 4 alone," with the sentiment overall proving none of us are, erm, looking forward to these patches.

Here's hoping things end up going as smoothly as they possibly can – but honestly, I've gone ahead and just cleared out my mods for now in preparation for the annihilation of my load order and custom downloads… because those who don't learn from history and all that.

Here's everything we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 if you're craving something new from Bethesda – we certainly are.

Earlier this week, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma experienced a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6, and offered some exuberant praise for it, alongside with an extra little teaser: eight asterisks. These eight asterisks, apparently, represent the game's subtitle, and they're lending credence to a longstanding theory that the title of the upcoming RPG will be The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel. It seems Bethesda may have even been planning this reveal since Starfield.

Both Asha's tweet and a follow-up message from Bethesda's own account were quite conspicuous in repeating "********," so it seems clear the devs expect us to be speculating on an eight-letter subtitle for The Elder Scrolls 6.

"Sentinel" instantly became a frontrunner among the guesses, since the name has history in Elder Scrolls lore. The kingdom of Sentinel – and the capital city of the same name – is a prominent location in Hammerfell, which has long been rumored as the RPG's location. That alone makes it a pretty compelling guess, to the point where even former Bethesda dev Michael Kirkbride had co-signed it, but there's more fuel for this fire.

When you create your character in Starfield, there's an employee number listed at the bottom of the screen: 190514-2009140512. You can split that number into two-digit components, as in 19, 05, 14, 20, 09, 14, 05, and 12. Count out each number to a corresponding letter in the alphabet and, well, you can probably guess where this is going. You'll get S, E, N, T, I, N, E, and L.

The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield were both announced at the same time, and certainly by the time Starfield was actually released in 2023, it's possible Bethesda had already decided on the next game's subtitle.

In any case, it's safe to say that the Elder Scrolls community has been taken by Sentinel fever at this point. The whole Elder Scrolls 6 subreddit has been overtaken by Sentinel fever, especially after the apparent Starfield teaser was pointed out. I'm on board with the sentiment the folks behind the UESP Wiki are tweeting: "I am starting to believe."

The Elder Scrolls 6 demo had a surprise guest at Bethesda HQ: a giant inflatable rat set up by protesting employees to watch Xbox execs who oversaw "devastating layoffs."

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.

The Elder Scrolls 6 will be hurt and potentially delayed by Xbox layoffs, Bethesda devs expect: "This has had a crushing effect on morale."

Bethesda has been on a roll with its Nintendo Switch 2 ports despite Skyrim's troubled (but now fixed) version in late 2025. Fallout 4 was a stunner with several performance options, and MachineGames' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – a current-gen beauty with unique challenges – also made the jump successfully. Now, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered has managed to surprise me as well, despite enduring hiccups tarnishing the overall experience.

Below its shiny Unreal Engine 5 surface, Oblivion Remastered remains the same 2006 RPG despite some upgrades and tweaks to certain systems. This means its charming Gamebryo jank was left untouched, but also that base-level performance problems were never removed. With UE5 adding a handful of quirks of its own, which few developers have been able to treat successfully, technical issues have stained a big refresh that's otherwise lovely. It seems we're cursed to never have a stable version of this unique open-world RPG. Regardless, this Switch 2 port impresses and has given me hope for further optimization patches.

Still good-looking (mostly)

Oblivion Remastered's first Switch 2 trailer didn't fill me – or anyone, I think – with confidence. Like in the first look at the Fallout 4 port, visuals were jagged and visibly dialed down. The end result, however, fares quite well. We're dealing with a less detailed and sharp version of the RPG's visual overhaul here, but it retains all the key visual features of the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC versions. Yes, even fancy UE5 features like Lumen lighting and Nanite's virtualized geometry system.

Switch 2's unique hardware features – with its proper DLSS upscaler saving the day once again – elevate yet another ambitious port. When compared to how much the game's visual presentation is compromised on Steam Deck and other handheld PCs, Nintendo's hybrid console emerges victorious by a wide margin. Visuals are sharper across the board; settings to achieve 30 FPS are higher; and the big UE5 lighting and geometry features make Cyrodiil's sun-bathed vistas pop in a way that I wasn't expecting.

There are two points on the graphical front that deserve special attention though. First, there's a clear gap between the handheld and docked modes, with portable play getting additional cuts – mostly to draw distances – and unavoidably grainier image output at 900p versus TV mode's 1080p. Mind you, DLSS does a lot of heavy lifting here, but expect a less detailed presentation in handheld mode even if the smaller screen helps hide many of the cutbacks.

As you can tell in the above screenshots – handheld left and docked right – trees are way less detailed in portable play, and lighting and grass also take additional hits. In addition to the resolution cut, it's enough to keep the game mostly locked at 30 FPS. Most of these changes are more obvious when walking around the open areas around the cities and towns, with interiors faring much better.

Second, the Switch 2 port surprisingly retains a Screen Space Reflections toggle as it's the one and only video setting beyond brightness and FOV modifiers. As expected, these advanced – but outdated – reflections enhance water surfaces, but also cause odd visual artifacts with moving objects, including the weapons you hold. This isn't an Oblivion Remastered-specific issue, but it's worth noting. Outside of that small annoyance, it seemingly has no effect on performance, so I'd recommend keeping it on for better reflections. Look at the screens above for a quick comparison.

Hello stuttering, my old friend

Performance is a trickier matter. By and large, Oblivion Remastered on Switch 2 isn't a disaster, and actually feels perfectly playable in most scenarios considering it's a slow-paced action RPG. Its 30 FPS target is hit most of the time. Even the mouse mode and motion gyro controls feel useful despite the lack of higher framerate modes. But it can become a stuttery mess at times, and that's harder to overlook.

This is more of an inherited problem than something wrong with the port. In fact, Bethesda has teased some of the under-the-hood improvements that made the Switch 2 release possible could come to other platforms. I just think there's something fundamentally wrong with how the original remaster was put together. The hitching while traversing the open areas is even worse than in the original Oblivion, likely the result of Gamebryo and UE5's worse aspects being combined without enough deep tinkering to offset their limitations. In the busier cities, turning the camera around too fast can also result in distracting stutters. Frame times also feel off, though the console's own screen seems to mask them better than a TV. Some of these issues could be fixed, but I'm not holding my breath when it comes to recurring – and even decades-old – ones.

In the end – and unless substantial updates clean things up – we have a port that's equal parts impressive and frustrating. All the work that has gone into making it work on far lesser hardware while retaining its beauty shouldn't be overlooked, yet the technical issues that ruined it for many players continue to cast a shadow over the effort. Platform-specific optimizations could still arrive, and some of the weirder behavior that might be tied to CPU limitations could be rooted out with decent patches, yet I'm fairly sure we'll never be able to go for a smooth horseback ride around Cyrodiil.

Those who were never dazzled by Bethesda's post-Morrowind Elder Scrolls won't be charmed by Oblivion Remastered in portable form, and it's harder to deal with rough edges when you aren't used to the game's eternal jankiness. But longtime fans that have closed the Gates of Oblivion time and again over the years will no doubt pour hundreds of hours into the first portable Oblivion experience that just works out of the box. Plus, Bethesda listened to code-in-a-box criticisms and delivered a true physical release. All things considered, I'm giving this one a thumbs-up. By Azura!

We've ranked the best Elder Scrolls games

The Elder Scrolls 6 is once again back in the limelight following Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's "live playthrough" of the upcoming Bethesda Game Studios RPG, as fans (and developers, it seems) try to decipher what the game's setting might be.

It's a tale as old as time – The Elder Scrolls 6 theories running rampant online. This time, though, they may actually have a foundation to them, as Sharma's used exactly eight asterisks to note the game's title… and Bethesda did the same in response.

So, what could those eight asterisks stand for? Not Hammerfell, sadly, but that doesn't mean the massive region is off the table entirely. Sentinel just so happens to fit the eight-letter bill here.

Fans have noted as much on a post regarding the "teaser" from Xbox (if you can call it that), suggesting "Sentinel" as a potential title – a potential title that former Bethesda developer Michael Kirkbride himself evidently feels is plausible.

In response to the suggestion, he leaves a comment himself: "Yep." Understandably, the Elder Scrolls veteran's agreement here has us thinking that the Hammerfell kingdom might truly be it.

That's not the only possible setting or title, though, of course… there's still High Rock (if you remove the space between High and Rock, that is), and Starfall, as in Starfall Bay, as an Elder Scrolls stan points out on X.

The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages – the biggest (and best, if I do say so myself) wiki on Bethesda's series – has rounded up plenty of potential fill-ins for the eight asterisks in a thread, too, and there are many.

Orsinium immediately catches my eye, standing as the legendary capital and ancestral homeland of the Orsimer, as does Aldmeris… perhaps because I'm unapologetically a High Elf in every possible Elder Scrolls entry myself, and, you know, because I'd like to see Bethesda shake things up a bit with The Elder Scrolls 6.

What better way to do that than to explore some of the series' mythology in-depth?

Heck, I'd love to see the studio deviate from the timelines it's previously covered by a lot, although I doubt I will (my dream to see the Dwemer and Falmer take center stage will never come to life, I'm afraid).

I'll be happy with whatever Bethesda cooks up at this point, however. I mean, after well over a decade now, The Elder Scrolls 6 might just stand as one of the most hotly anticipated new games – so, yeah.

The Elder Scrolls 6 demo had a surprise guest at Bethesda HQ: a giant inflatable rat set up by protesting employees to watch Xbox execs who oversaw "devastating layoffs"

Oblivion Remastered has by and large been a huge success for Bethesda both critically and commercially, but even more than a year after launch, it still suffers from poor performance including stuttering, frame rate instability, and crashes. The Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game launched today with touchscreen, mouse control, and gyro aiming support, as well as general improvements like DLSS anti-aliasing and "performance optimizations from the original Oblivion Remastered release," according to Bethesda itself. There's been no official sign that these performance improvements are coming to other platforms. Not until now, at least.

"We've heard your feedback asking for an additional patch for Oblivion Remastered," reads a tweet from the official Bethesda Twitter account. "The Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game has a number of optimizations that we are looking into bringing to other platforms and we will share more when we are able."

I haven't had the chance to play Oblivion Remastered on Switch 2, but I played it a lot on PS5 last year and definitely felt like it could use a little polish despite the incredible visual overhaul and systems refinements. The trademark Bethesda jank is well-reserved and arguably necessary, but random frame rate drops and progress-killing crashes are a straight-up hinderance.

Of course, the improvements to the Switch 2 version are frustratingly unspecific, but "performance optimizations" would definitely be welcome on all versions of the game. Hopefully, Bethesda's acknowledgment ultimately manifests into something more than just A Tweet.

Oblivion intern tried to outsmart Bethesda's AI and was stunned when his apple murder strategy actually worked: "I can't believe you accounted for this"

Today, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma got a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6, offering exuberant praise of the upcoming RPG's scale and story. Some Bethesda workers took the opportunity to remind Sharma of the 3,200 employees that are being cut under her watch as part of Xbox's massive restructure.

"Today at HQ, we had special guests from Microsoft leadership," according to a Bluesky post from OneBGS, a union representing employees at Bethesda. "We refuse to let executives forget what game studios are actually made of: their workers. As welcome gift, we placed hundreds of flags outside, honoring all of the game workers who have been laid off by Microsoft in 2026 (so far)."

But those flags aren't the only visible form of protest for Sharma's visit: there's also the giant inflatable rat, shown below in a post from journalist Chris Kerr. These sorts of inflatable rat displays are common at union protests and strikes, and the message from employees is clear.

NEW: CWA union members have inflated a giant rat and deployed a wall of red flags representing laid off Xbox workers outside the Bethesda office in Rockville. The protest was timed to coincide with a visit from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who is apparently at the studio today.

— @kerrblimey.bsky.social (@kerrblimey.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-11T21:26:31.556Z

Members of the studio "decided to make our presence visible at the office to show how our developers have been impacted by these devastating layoffs," according to a statement from Nathan Hahn, technical producer at Bethesda, which was shared with Kerr.

"We're mobilising to fight back against these layoffs not just to ensure impacted XBOX devs and testers get treated fairly, but to remind our company and game studios everywhere that layoffs like this cannot continue," Hahn continues. "If Microsoft leadership does not have the courage to do what's right for our studios to make the best possible games, it's up to us to stand up for each other and protect the future of our careers and the game industry."

OneBGS previously blasted Xbox's layoffs, saying that the studio has "lost dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers," including "many" who had been at the studio "for decades." The union continued, "If Bethesda fans are worried this will harm the quality of our future games, like TES VI, let Microsoft know!"

The Elder Scrolls 6 was officially announced in 2018 and even now, nearly a decade later, the only evidence of the game's existence consists of quotes from folks like Sharma and Bethesda boss Todd Howard. It has to be released eventually – the only real question, amid Microsoft's nigh-annual mass layoffs, is how many of Bethesda's workers will still be there when that moment comes.

Id Software dev says Microsoft's layoffs prove "they fundamentally don't understand" art, games, the entire business, or the destruction they just caused.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma suggests she's just played, or at least watched, a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6.

"Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI: ******** this morning," Sharma says offhandedly in a tweet. "The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater."

This "live playthrough" will presumably have been a milestone presentation shown to Sharma and possibly other Xbox executives by the development team at Bethesda, likely including chief Todd Howard, but we can't say for sure what the exact environment was like or how far along the demoed build is.

I've no doubt that Elder Scrolls scholars will pounce on the eight asterisks Sharma uses to censor the title of The Elder Scrolls 6, but I wouldn't put too much stock in it just yet.

That's your regularly scheduled The Elder Scrolls 6 teaser sorted. With the energy of someone who's checked the readings, found them wanting, and shattered the nearest glass labeled "break in case of emergency," Sharma's added another breadcrumb to the pile.

In June, Xbox CCO Matt Booty assured fans that, some eight years since its reveal, The Elder Scrolls 6 is "coming along well." He also joined Howard in the illusion that a game can be un-revealed, or at least revealed twice.

"I would say one of the more challenging balancing acts of someone in a job like mine is balancing that you want to go show the world all the cool stuff you're working on, and you want to get them excited early, but we also know that we want to wait till the right moment," Booty said.

"I can tell you, having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd and seen 'Elder Scrolls' playing, it looks amazing, and it's coming along well," he added. "And we'll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time."

Last month, on the heels of layoffs that hit the studio as part of Xbox's widespread bloodletting, Bethesda announced a whole bunch of stuff about the future of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. Amidst this torrent of announcements, The Elder Scrolls 6 was described as Bethesda's development priority, with multiple other games caught in its orbit.

The Elder Scrolls 6, like the pre-production Fallout 5, uses Creation Engine 3, which Bethesda says "extends beyond our teams to the technology, tools, and systems that will power the next generation of Bethesda RPGs."

"Unconscionable": The day of Bethesda's Fallout reveal explosion, its laid-off Montreal devs were told they "would receive the smallest severance legally possible" and "immediately" lose health insurance benefits, union says.

Last year's The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered did a lot more than slap a fresh coat of paint on the 2006 RPG, with environments (but not necessarily character models) that look straight out of a 2026 AAA release, but as anyone who's played the original game knows, it's still very much Oblivion, lovable jank and all. While there was a lot of deliberation about what and what not to modernize during development, Todd Howard and co. drew a hard line between remaster and full-blown remake, opting to market the game as a polished-up version of the original rather than something all new.

That's because, in the words of associate art director Dan Lee, it shares the same "bones" as the original Oblivion. "Obviously the art is remake territory, it was all remade," Lee tells Nintendo Life. "But it really came down to Todd's perception of - well, the core bones are still the original game. So it's disingenuous to call it a remake. We're taking the core engine and then laying all this other stuff on top. We did some other little tweaks and things like that. But the core is still mostly there."

You might think the distinction between remaster and remake is fairly straightforward, and to some degree it is, but since there's such a wide spectrum between straight-up ports and ground-up remakes, the lines can be a little fuzzy and lead to all sorts of controversy when it comes to pricing and availability alongside the originals. On the other hand, there are remakes that are so different from their original counterparts as to be virtually considered separate games, leaving zero ambiguity about how to label them.

"There are all kinds of games that fit on the scale where it's just high resolution and then maybe they upgrade some of the textures or update some character models," adds Lee. "But then you can go all the way over to Resident Evil 2 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which are clearly remakes. They're taking the original vision and then just making completely new games based on that vision. Whereas here, we have lots of elements of the original game intact."

I think Bethesda made the right call sticking to remastering Oblivion rather than remaking it. Both Oblivion and Oblivion Remastered are gorgeous games and, with a remake, the studio would've likely had to reallocate resources from The Elder Scrolls 6, which was announced eight long years ago. No distractions, is what I'm saying.

Oblivion intern tried to outsmart Bethesda's AI and was stunned when his apple murder strategy actually worked: "I can't believe you accounted for this"

One of the most delightful elements of a good open-world RPG is the way you can bend and sometimes break systems to your will, giving you the freedom to approach and think about obstacles independently from the intended design. The Elder Scrolls games have been masterclasses in emergent gameplay for decades, as evidenced by a fun new anecdote from Bethesda Game Studios veteran and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered art lead Dan Lee, who joined the studio shortly after OG Oblivion's announcement way back when.

Talking to Nintendo Life, Lee shares one of his early memories from working on Oblivion as a play tester. Testing persistent AI behavior, Lee chose to use an NPC's hunger mechanic against him instead of tackling the quest head-on as scripted in the linear path.

"I was playtesting and I was learning about how reading AI worked and I learned about the hunger mechanic, how the characters actually look for food if they're hungry. There's a quest that has you getting onto a boat and you have to kill a captain. And then as you do it, his second in command and another guy pop up and ambush you," says Lee.

"I was like, 'Can I abuse this in any way?,'" he adds, a question every self-respecting Fallout and Elder Scrolls player asks dozens of times during any given playthrough.

"So I heard about this eating mechanic, I snuck through the ship into his room, took all the food, left a poison apple in his pocket, and then left. I wait and I get the pop-up saying 'Quest Completed'; he's dead. I ran to [designer] Emil Pagliarulo and said, 'I can't believe you accounted for this. This is great!' And he's like, 'I didn't, that was just the game systems working.'"

These kinds of interactions are what make games like Oblivion, Skyrim, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Baldur's Gate 3, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild feel alive and endlessly replayable.

Lee says that quest has stuck with him for more than two decades because of the way Oblivion's systems "interplay" and result in "unexpected fun," and beyond that, anything that makes an RPG feel less scripted and more organic builds immersion and makes it feel more lifelike.

Of course, the game's lovably egregious bugs arguably subtract from that immersion somewhat, but that's all part of the Bethesda RPG experience we've come to know and love.

Here are the best RPGs we recommend in 2026.

The Elder Scrolls Online developer Zenimax Online got hit hard by the unprecedented Xbox restructuring from earlier this month, with a Microsoft filing confirming the studio lost more than 200 developers. Still, it insists its flagship title isn't going anywhere any time soon.

In a new community letter from Elder Scrolls Online's new game director, Nick Giacomini, who replaced longtime lead Rich Lambert, Giacomini lays out an optimistic future for the game while acknowledging "a number of organizational changes and departures of teammates who helped shape The Elder Scrolls Online."

Despite messaging that indicates Zenimax Online is struggling with "team bandwidth," as well as concern from a laid off senior developer about the studio's ability to push out content at the same cadence as before, Giacomini says there's still a bright future ahead for Elder Scrolls Online, thanks in part to "a new chapter of collaboration across Bethesda.

"By working more closely with Bethesda Game Studios across The Elder Scrolls, we have new opportunities to share ideas, align our efforts, and create even better experiences for players, all while continuing to build the future of ESO."

Giacomini couches his optimism with some less than great news. "With the recent changes to our studio, trying to hit our previously announced deadlines would mean sacrificing the quality you deserve," he says. "Therefore, we are establishing a clear principle for how we build and ship content and features moving forward: quality experiences over calendar dates."

You know what means: delays. Specifically, the new Crimson Veldt trial is being delayed to January 2027 alongside Update 52, which will also include the new Jerall Pass PvP zone and Skyrim's Dynamic Encounters: Rimegales. The long-anticipated refresh to classes and combat is also being moved to 2027, but Zenimax Online is looking at "some interim options" for classes in the meantime.

"We know it's disappointing to see some features move out, and believe me, we want to get these into your hands as soon as possible, too. But we believe this is the right move for the long-term health of the game," says Giacomini.

Giacomini lays out the main highlights of this year's two seasons in his writeup, and there's definitely a good amount of new stuff still coming this year, but his focus returns to the long-term vision.

"We've had bumps in the road over our 12-year history that we've always faced together," he says. "As our studio evolves, we are not looking to just 'maintain' the game. We are looking to grow it. You, our community, are the reason we have grown over the years, and we want to keep growing with you. 

"Moving forward, our principles are simple: we will continue to build fun and rewarding experiences through our Seasonal model, deliver long-standing player-requested features and changes that make Tamriel more fulfilling, and find new ways to provide you with features and content to keep your adventures fresh."

Giacomini says plans for Elder Scrolls Online in 2027 are still being finalized, but he teases some "never before seen," "all-new experiences in Skyrim" as part of the roadmap. I've been playing Elder Scrolls Online on-and-off for almost a decade, and I'm cautiously excited to see what's next for a studio navigating dramatic leadership changes, a tighter budget, and a smaller team.

"There's really no one left": Former Elder Scrolls Online dev says the MMO "basically funded other failing projects" as Microsoft guts the studio

Bethesda is promising that the development roadmap for The Elder Scrolls 6 hasn't been impacted by mass layoffs across Xbox's various subsidiaries, despite some current and former staff fearing the worst.

Earlier this month, Xbox began what it called a "reset" of its business. In plain words, that meant the console maker parted ways with four first-party studios and laid off 1,600 workers across Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, and Activision Blizzard, with 1,600 more job cuts coming over the course of the next year.

Now, asked about whether the sweeping cuts have impacted The Elder Scrolls 6's development timeline at all, Bethesda tells YouTuber MrMattyPlays that production on its most-hyped upcoming game is going just fine, thank you very much: "No, the roadmap is unaffected."

The question was tossed toward Bethesda because the publisher was hit particularly hard by Xbox's layoffs and because several staffers are seemingly far more worried about the fantasy epic's development than their employer.

Citing anonymous sources, IGN reported that several The Elder Scrolls 6 developers are worried about potential delays, crunch culture, and an extra reliance on contractors who would be unfamiliar with the studio's proprietary game dev tech.

The Elder Scrolls Online is already struggling with "team bandwidth" after developer Zenimax Online Studios lost well over 100 team members, but we likely won't see how the worker reductions affect The Elder Scrolls 6 until the game finally, maybe, rears its head once again.

Bethesda Game Studios' mammoth RPG was first announced to the public in the summer of 2018 with a trailer that didn't reveal much. There was a logo, a non-descript landscape, and a promise that BGS would eventually start properly making the sequel once Starfield was in the wild.

Last we heard, the company said it was happy with its progress on The Elder Scrolls 6. "The next chapter is on the way. We're where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day," it wrote.

"Don't fall for it": Union says Fallout 5 and Elder Scrolls 6 news shouldn't distract you from huge Bethesda layoffs as Xbox CEO praises the series' "remarkable" achievements

Amid the rubble of the layoffs across Xbox, which included numerous positions at Bethesda and ZeniMax, the remaining developers on The Elder Scrolls Online are starting to struggle. The MMO is one of numerous projects impacted by Microsoft's restructuring of its games division, with only a fraction of the staff attached now as opposed to prior.

To mitigate their own workload, devs on The Elder Scrolls Online are making changes to what features are available to players. As of today, July 22, that includes in-game purchases, since the ability to do so through the official site has been removed.

"To help manage workload, we have decided to remove the Web Crown Store from the official elderscrollsonline.com website," reads a message from Kevin Gbolie, community manager on ESO, on the official forum.

"The ability to acquire crowns via the website will remain," he says, "and, of course, this does not affect the items that will be offered on the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online, you will just need to login into the game to view and purchase the latest offerings."

It's noted that the blog for showing off what's in the Crown Store will change as well, due to "team bandwidth." In response to comments on these changes, Gbolie mentions that while the new version of the blog is still being sorted out, it'll definitely come with a bullet list of new items.

This is unfortunate because the high-res screenshots accompanying the items were used by the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, and Gbolie even mentions the team is aware of that symbiosis. But alas, the time and energy just aren't there any more.

"The team responsible for the blog and those screenshots doesn't have the capacity to provide those at the scale we could before," he writes in another post. "But we will provide what we can for now and adjust from there."

It is a sad time for Bethesda, ZeniMax, this game, and the legacy behind it. These devs deserve better, but at least the game is still going – for now.

Bethesda reportedly canceled an unannounced PvP shooter, likely from Wolfenstein dev MachineGames.

Not everyone is feeling optimistic about The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 following Bethesda's confirmation that both are being developed using the studio's proprietary Creation Engine, albeit an updated version.

Last week, Bethesda dropped a slew of information, including confirmation that Fallout 5 is in pre-production, that Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters are in the works, and that Obsidian Entertainment is teaming up with the studio on a whole new Fallout game. Amongst all that was the announcement that both Fallout 5 and The Elder Scrolls 6 are being built on Creation Engine 3, "a shared technology platform we've been building since Starfield's launch. It allows our teams to support multiple projects simultaneously with new tools, rendering, and systems that define our games."

Speaking to Windows Central, Todd Howard states that "I can't say enough about our tech team," calling it "incredible." He adds: "Our designers ask for so much crazy stuff, and our tech team finds a way to do it. And I think that's really defined our games where you feel like anything is possible."

Despite Howard's words, however, not all fans are thrilled about the news. "The creation engine is fun for modders but it is complete dogshit compared to most other big game studios' engines," one Reddit user responds. "Time and time again it has led to crap games that feel outdated on release day. Their games really suffer from trying to please modders above all else."

"Code for 'games are gonna release in an absolute buggy mess, and we just expect the players to fix it for us,'" another writes. "Bugs and Bethesda. A tale as old as time."

Many have specifically expressed concerns about how many loading screens the two RPGs might have, with one speculating on Twitter that the choice of engine "means they will very likely both still require loading screens when entering Interiors. I think this is one of the biggest weaknesses of Bethesda games, it really does feel outdated…"

Another on Reddit adds: "Bethesda seriously needs to get the load screens under control for TES VI and Fallout 5 (and presumably the Obsidian Fallout title). Small buildings still requiring load screens in the late 2020s would look bad, period."

With that said, not everyone is disappointed with the decision. "People hate the engine but no other game engine comes close to the modding ability," says a Reddit fan, as another comments: "This is a boon for future modders!" Meanwhile, some are just happy that it's not one particular alternative: "I'm just glad we won't see yet another studio subsumed into the Unreal ecosystem."

There's an air of uncertainty surrounding the Bethesda projects in general following the studio being hit in Xbox's recent wave of layoffs. Devs affected previously said that it's going to be "harder than ever now" for the studio to focus on those two core franchises after losing so much talent.

Bethesda says The Elder Scrolls 6 is going great, actually: "We're where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day."

Bethesda just announced a whole lot of news about the future of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, and if you find the timing of it all a bit suspicious, you're not alone. United Videogame Workers-CWA says the announcement is an "intentional" distraction from the layoffs happening at Bethesda.

"The timing of this kind of press is intentional," UVW-CWA says in a Bluesky post. "How are they going to make these games when Bethesda and Obsidian collectively laid off hundreds? Don’t fall for it."

UVW-CWA is a direct-join union representing game workers across the industry, but it does not represent any one specific workplace. The CWA part of the name is for the Communications Workers of America, which supports several workplace unions at various Microsoft-owned game studios, including Bethesda.

The timing of this kind of press is intentional. How are they going to make these games when Bethesda and Obsidian collectively laid off hundreds? Don’t fall for it.

— @videogameworkers.bsky.social (@videogameworkers.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T20:21:37.854Z

Employees across Microsoft's gaming divisions staged protests last week in support of those affected by the Xbox layoffs. Game Developer reports that unions are also taking legal action against Microsoft.

According to CWA Canada president Carmel Smyth, "The unions CWA and CWA Canada have jointly filed unfair labor practice complaints against Microsoft alleging the company has unlawfully fired people without giving notice to or discussing it with the union as the employer is legally obliged to do when we are in the middle of ongoing bargaining [for] a collective agreement."

For her part, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is celebrating the historic success of Bethesda's various franchises on Twitter. "The achievements of these franchises are remarkable: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has crossed 65 million units sold, becoming one of the 10 best-selling games of all time, Fallout 4 has also crossed 35 million units sold, joining the top 25, and Starfield will soon reach over 1 billion hours played," she says.

But at a certain point, you have to start asking whether the developers who actually made those games have actually seen the fruits of their success. Certainly, they're not getting royalties – come on, this is the video game industry – but many aren't even getting to enjoy continued employment. We've only gotten anecdotal details on individuals who have been laid off, but we know their numbers include Christiane Meister, a 27-year veteran of everything from Morrowind to Fallout 4, and Dane Olds, a 20-year vet with a similar list of credits.

But hey, Fallout 5 is coming! And The Elder Scrolls 6! And Obsidian's making a new Fallout game of its own, finally – never mind the reports that Microsoft canceled the studio's Avowed follow-up in order to have it build something for the far more popular franchise. I'm certain that the developers who remain at these studios are putting their all into their work, but it's tough to see today's announcement as much more than Microsoft's attempt at jingling keys in front of the eyes of gamers who've grown increasingly exhausted of the industry's most cynical business practices.

Todd Howard says layoffs at Bethesda were "really tough": "We're going through a change so that we focus best on the franchises."

I'm sure nobody needs to be told that Bethesda's seminal RPG Skyrim is a best-seller. I mean, you don't get ported as much without having sustaining market value. But what may be surprising to hear is that The Witcher 3 has actually out-sold the dragon-heavy adventure, at least according to figures provided by the studio.

During a time of turmoil for the company and the industry as a whole, due to Xbox's widespread layoffs, Bethesda provided an official update on social media. Buried in the post, which touches on Fallout, Starfield, The Elder Scrolls 6 and more, is a little milestone for the latter's fifth mainline installment.

"With over 65 million copies sold, players are still exploring Skyrim 15 years later, but we know it’s been a very long wait for the sequel," the company writes. "The next chapter is on the way. We’re where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day."

65 million copies; that's a lot. It's an amount most developers can only dream about. But then, most developers aren't Todd Howard and his team of quest-creators and dungeon masters.

If you're wondering where that ranks in terms of all-time sales, it places Skyrim in eighth, directly behind Terraria, and just ahead of Super Mario Bros on the NES. And it's actually tied with Geralt of Rivia's landmark outing, The Witcher 3.

CD Projekt Red confirmed The Witcher 3 had shifted 65 million copies in May of this year. It and Skyrim may have done so around the same time, even. But what's crucial to remember here is that The Elder Scrolls 5 had a four year head start, coming out in 2011 (I know, I know), whereas The Witcher 3 arrived in 2015.

I don't mean to cause drama here, but that sounds like a challenge. Todd, another port is in order. Make Skyrim the launch game on the next Xbox. That should do it. I mean, unless The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be around by then - but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Fallout 5 is "currently in preproduction": Bethesda breaks silence on long-awaited RPG

Bethesda Game Studios has undeniably felt the impact of Microsoft's recent plan to cut over 3,200 employees at Xbox – but according to the company, The Elder Scrolls 6 is still chugging along just fine.

The studio reveals as much in quite a lengthy new post over on Twitter, confirming that The Elder Scrolls 6 is currently Bethesda's primary focus – and the developers feel pretty confident about the new RPG, too. That and the next Fallout game, which we now know is for sure happening.

"Our teams are now developing The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 on Creation Engine 3, a shared technology platform we've been building since Starfield's launch," writes Bethesda. "It allows our teams to support multiple projects simultaneously with new tools, rendering, and systems that define our games."

This lines up with what we know about Bethesda's in-house engine – Todd Howard said the devs are "very happy where the tech is and where it's going" early this year, describing how Bethesda has "handled" the new Creation Engine "better than we ever have" thanks to lessons learned from Starfield.

The studio's current thread continues, describing where the new Fallout and Elder Scrolls are in terms of development.

"Fallout 5 is currently in preproduction. The Elder Scrolls 6 is our primary development focus today, with the majority of our team currently working on the next chapter of the franchise. With over 65 million copies sold, players are still exploring Skyrim 15 years later, but we know it's been a very long wait for the sequel."

That's an understatement – but Bethesda's words here are reassuring nonetheless. It has been well over a decade since Skyrim changed the RPG genre forever, leaving us all craving the next Elder Scrolls, after all.

But, as the studio confirms, "The next chapter is on the way. We're where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day."

It's bittersweet, with all things considered – especially amid all of the layoffs. The company's union representatives reported a big loss of "dozens of programmers, artists, designers, and testers," which would imply quite the impact on development.

Devs affected by the layoffs also said that making new Fallout and Elder Scrolls games would "be harder than ever now" following Microsoft's Xbox cuts, so... yeah.

Here's hoping Bethesda truly is cooking with The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5, and that former devs land on their feet, too.

Elder Scrolls Online is "not going to be able to put out the amount of content at the speed" it was, former dev says following Xbox layoffs.

Ex-The Elder Scrolls Online senior encounter designer Morgan Goin was one of the devs let go from Zenimax Online Studios and says she can't see how the studio can maintain the same cadence of updates going forward.

Microsoft kicked off its fifth batch of layoffs since spending $75 billion on acquiring Activision Blizzard in 2023. Since then Microsoft has effectively had yearly layoffs each July, with Zenimax Online Studios – which was hit in a major way last year's layoffs, resulting in the cancellation of Project Blackbird and several high-profile departures from the company – being one of the biggest hits for of this year's wave alongside Doom developer id Software, as up to half of the devs behind Bethesda's MMO have reportedly lost their jobs.

While Bethesda did try to damage control this somewhat with a statement saying its team is the same size as in 2015, devs are painting a different story. Speaking to BBC News, Goin says she was "blindsided" by the sheer number of cuts and estimates that some disciplines at the studio have been reduced to a quarter of their pre-layoffs size. Goin adds, "We're not going to be able to put out the amount of content at the speed that we were… or anything approaching that."

Andrew Young, a senior content designer on Elder Scrolls Online from 2012 until 2024, said the MMO "basically funded other failing projects." While nothing specific was mentioned, The Elder Scrolls Blades and Legends didn't exactly light the world on fire, but it could be in reference to any number of underperforming Zenimax titles (two bad Wolfenstein spinoffs releasing on the same day, anyone?).

Like with last year's layoffs, Zenimax Online Studios is losing several high-profile staff as a result of this year's cuts, with studio head Joseph Burba, Elder Scrolls Online executive producer Susan Kath, studio game director Rich Lambert, and production director Ala Diaz all reportedly leaving the company.

Making Fallout and Elder Scrolls games will "be harder than ever now" following Xbox cuts, say laid-off Bethesda devs calling loss of institutional knowledge "staggering"

Bethesda Game Studios – and, in particular, ZeniMax Online Studios – have felt the impact of Microsoft's recent plan to cut over 3,200 employees at Xbox, with the company's union representatives reporting a loss of "dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers."

It's no secret that the layoffs have torn through Bethesda and its Elder Scrolls Online studio, which has been hit particularly hard.

An MMO team that grew over time to quite mind-boggling figures has now been reduced to the same size it boasted over a decade ago, leaving remaining developers – and fans – concerned about the future. Those affected didn't just include devs, however… leadership has faced the chopping block, too, apparently.

We learn as much from Game File, which reportedly obtained a copy of the official notice from ZeniMax Online Studios regarding its plans to "transition" to new leadership "over the next few months" – leadership that consists of company veterans.

Leads departing include studio head Joseph Burba (who has a 14-year history at the company and was just appointed to his role last July), Elder Scrolls Online executive producer Susan Kath, studio game director Rich Lambert, and production director Ala Diaz.

They "will remain in place during the transition period to help ensure a smooth handoff," however.

As for who will step in to take the helm, head of business operations Joshua Henderson will run ZeniMax Online Studios alongside Nick Giacomini, who was just promoted to Elder Scrolls Online game director last August.

In their statement, the former leaders note that they predict "growth" for the MMO.

"We have tremendous confidence in Josh and Nick," they write, "the future of this studio, and the continued growth of ESO. With exciting experiences still ahead for our players as we wrap up work for Update 51 and beyond, we believe that your passion, creativity, and commitment to each other and the community will continue serving as the heartbeat of ESO."

It's bittersweet – especially after some 200+ losses at the studio.

Here's hoping that the affected developers are able to land on their feet, and ZeniMax Online Studios can pick up the pieces somehow – these certainly aren't easy times in the industry, and the impact is more evident than ever.

Making Fallout and Elder Scrolls games will "be harder than ever now" following Xbox cuts, say laid-off Bethesda devs calling loss of institutional knowledge "staggering"

Bethesda Game Studios has been feeling the impact following Microsoft's plan to cut over 3,200 employees at Xbox, with the company's union representatives reporting a big loss of "dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers."

Unsurprisingly, these layoffs will likely have an impact on Bethesda's ongoing and future projects – like The Elder Scrolls 6, which fans have been eagerly waiting nearly 15 years for now.

Former developers affected by the widespread cuts from Microsoft report as much, too, with such sources telling Game Developer that Bethesda will feel the blow of the situation in its work on such new games.

"Bethesda Game Studios lost a lot of talent this week," one ex-dev says. "Xbox says they want to focus on their core franchises like Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but that's going to be harder than ever now."

In other words, this is a large setback for Bethesda, as the remaining folks working on the big series struggle to balance the shockwaves from the layoffs with a quick enough recovery so that development might move along.

It's not just Bethesda, either. As another source tells the outlet, "The institutional knowledge that has been lost or will be lost completely as individuals leave the gaming industry all together is staggering. Those that are left must be scrambling to pick up the pieces."

That's a troubling thought to try and stomach, to say the least, but it does seem to reflect the current industry's climate. Things are undeniably turbulent.

This all lines up with what Bethesda has recently been saying, too – that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be hurt and potentially delayed by the Microsoft layoffs, and that they've "had a crushing effect on morale" at the company.

We can already see this with The Elder Scrolls Online, which has been hit particularly hard by the Xbox debacle. Who knows how it might impact new Fallout and Elder Scrolls titles?

I just hope the affected developers are able to land on their feet, and Bethesda resurfaces despite the layoffs – the book isn't closed for good here yet, after all.

As Elder Scrolls Online fans fear for the MMO, Bethesda reportedly confirms its team is the same size it was when it delivered some of its best content.

The Elder Scrolls Online team is unfortunately part of Microsoft's ongoing plan to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox, leaving the developers behind the Bethesda MMO far fewer in number than before.

In fact, the team is apparently as small as it was about a decade ago, when the game only really began to take off after its shaky launch – or, at least, that's what prominent community figure Baratron, who helps run the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages and its Discord, reports.

He reveals as much in a new message, explaining that he learned the news from associate design director Jason Barnes and associate director of community management Jessica Folsom.

It came during the past weekend's Elder Scrolls Online Tavern event in Hesse, Germany, where fans and developers gathered to celebrate the MMO.

"This is important," writes Baratron. "According to both Jason Barnes (Associate Design Director) and Jessica Folsom (Associate Director of Community Management), Zenimax Online Studios is now at the same size as it was when they made both Wrothgar and Summerset."

That's shocking, to say the least – but he doesn't seem to think it's a bad thing. After all, "both are highly acclaimed DLCs," as the UESP admin puts it. "So while the layoffs are extremely upsetting for everyone involved (of course including players), this is not necessarily the end of new content or the game going into maintenance mode."

Baratron assures that there's more reason to think the end of Elder Scrolls Online isn't near, too.

"Also Nick Giacomini (Game Director) and Susan Kath (Studio Executive Producer) are specifically not at the ESO Tavern because they're working on the new Roadmap of when content will be released," he states. "It really is not the end yet."

It's a bit of bittersweet, good-and-bad news, all things considered – the layoffs, obviously, are not nice to hear about… but it's reassuring that they don't spell the demise of the MMO.

Here's hoping any and all affected developers are able to land on their feet, and The Elder Scrolls Online proves to have a brighter future than fans expect following the upsetting news circulating recently.

"There's really no one left": Former Elder Scrolls Online dev says the MMO "basically funded other failing projects" as Microsoft guts the studio

It's no secret that Bethesda Game Studios has felt the impact following Microsoft announcing its plans to cut around 3,200 employees at Xbox over the next fiscal year, with the company's union representatives saying "we lost dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers" following the 1,600 Xbox job cuts earlier this week.

What isn't as clear, however, is the impact these layoffs have had and will continue to have on the production of The Elder Scrolls 6 – an RPG that arguably stands as one of the most hotly anticipated games to date.

In new statements to IGN, however, current Bethesda staff say the impact is evident and worrying. The loss "will have a substantial and cascading effect on the game and morale of this studio," as one developer puts it.

"It's been a mix of every discipline: programmers, artists, and designers," another chimes in. "One person who's been at the company since Morrowind was cut."

They might be referencing 27-year veteran Christiane Meister there, who worked on every Elder Scrolls entry since Morrowind, including Skyrim, and both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.

What of new Elder Scrolls games, though – namely the sixth entry?

"There is a fear that we are going to be replaced by cheaper, contracted labor, or we will hire folks to replace them that will need to be onboarded (our tools are proprietary, other devs aren't going to know how they work) resulting in more delays, and we'll need to crunch to make up the time," one dev admits.

Another explains that, concerning The Elder Scrolls 6 in particular, this has all been "crushing" to it the team.

"We've all been very excited and hyped for TES 6, and this has had a crushing effect on morale," they state. "We were already running a tight ship and are worried about this delaying the game (though a final release date was not yet chosen as far as we know)."

That's… concerning, to say the least. Both for the developers and the future of The Elder Scrolls 6 – a game that fans have eagerly been waiting nearly 15 years for now.

It doesn't help that, in terms of updates, the community has received few from Bethesda. The last actual trailer we got was a whopping eight years ago at E3 in 2018, after all. Even Todd Howard himself said to "just pretend we didn't didn't announce it" – so, um, yeah. He also admitted The Elder Scrolls 6 is still "a while" off, which adds another layer of uncertainty to this entire debacle.

Between the layoffs and all this… who knows?

Only time will tell, I suppose. I do just hope the affected developers are able to land on their feet, and Bethesda resurfaces despite the Microsoft upheaval – this is sadly not a rare reality in the industry anymore.

"There's really no one left": Former Elder Scrolls Online dev says the MMO "basically funded other failing projects" as Microsoft guts the studio.

The fallout from the bloodbath that is this week's unprecedented cuts to Microsoft's gaming division, which saw 1,600 Xbox employees lose their jobs immediately and will ultimately result in 3,200 cut jobs before the end of fiscal year 2027, continues with another high-profile departure. We're now learning that 27-year Bethesda veteran and lead character artist Christiane Meister, who worked on the Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76, has been let go.

The news was spotted by Elder Scrolls scholar Lady Nerevar (via PC Gamer), and confirmed via Meister's LinkedIn, which now reflects that the developer is a "former" Bethesda character artist and now open to work. "I was in charge of design, creation, and management of character art assets throughout all of the Elder Scrolls projects, starting with Morrowind to our latest title, Skyrim," reads her bio.

Of course, there's an unfathomable human toll to any mass layoff, but the loss of such an enduring talent – Meister wrote in a 2022 blog post about redesigning Skyrim's Khajiit and Argonians, as well as the game's horses – really underscores the fundamental level at which Xbox is willing to cut core talent behind its most beloved IP, despite the company's renewed focus on those tentpole franchises.

Meister isn't the only veteran losing her job, as Xbox's latest layoff blitz has impacted a 37-year Microsoft veteran who served as lead of the Xbox Backward Compatibility program for Xbox 360 games on Xbox One, Kevin LaChappelle.

It makes sense then that groups like the Bethesda Game Studios Union are sounding the alarm on what it calls a "cycle of cuts in pursuit of ever-greater profits," and one which I'll note isn't exclusive to Microsoft or Xbox. The games industry has been in a years-long downsizing crisis for years now with little sign of slowing down. Firings like Meister's not only come across particularly callous but also chip away at the visual identity of franchises gamers have depended on for invaluable escapism for decades.

Fallout and Elder Scrolls union says Bethesda layoffs didn't hurt Microsoft's "14 layers of management" – "We lost dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers"

While Microsoft's seemingly unending spree of Xbox layoffs has often swept right over core tentpole studios like Fallout and Elder Scrolls maker Bethesda Game Studios, this week's historic downsizing was different.

Among 3,200 cut jobs – 1,600 of which were eliminated immediately – Elder Scrolls Online studio ZeniMax Online, Avowed and Pentiment developer Obsidian, and Doom studio id Software were all impacted by significant cuts. Perhaps most surprisingly, even Bethesda Game Studios proper, the studio currently working on The Elder Scrolls 6, had its workforce reduced as part of the restructuring.

Many US-based BGS employees are protected by the Bethesda Game Studios Union (BGSU), which ideally will help to provide adequate severance pay and support for impacted developers, but the labor union is nonetheless outraged by what it sees as a continuous punishing of workers for mistakes made my management.

A previous statement blasted Microsoft's repeated layoffs as "a stressful annual routine," and a new message shared to Bluesky confirms what everyone had suspected: that the layoffs primarily targeted developers on the ground, not management.

"Yesterday’s layoffs at Bethesda Games Studios were not a cut of '14 layers of management,'" reads the post, which refers to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's layoff announcement and the mention of a byzantine management structure as one focus of the company's big reset. "We lost dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers. Many of whom worked at BGS for decades," says the BGSU.

One way you can show Microsoft your concern is here through the XBOX Player Voice feedback platform: feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/ide...

— @bethesdaunion.bsky.social (@bethesdaunion.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-08T19:11:02.752Z

The BGSU advises fans who are worried the latest Xbox cuts will impact the quality of the studio's games, "like [The Elder Scrolls 6," to make their voices heard. The union points to a post shared to Microsoft's feedback portal that demands Xbox "end studio closures and stop the cycle of layoffs" and lays out a list of requests co-signed by over 1,900 votes.

This week's Xbox's layoffs are the largest to ever hit the company and will stretch through the end of the 2027 fiscal year. That means some 1,600 Xbox employees will be nervously anticipating bad news for almost another year. Now it just boils down to hopes that we won't see additional cuts to Microsoft's gaming division.

Bethesda boss says the company must focus on its "strongest franchises" as Xbox layoffs reportedly hit The Elder Scrolls and Fallout makers hard.

The team behind Elder Scrolls Online is one of many that's been impacted by ruthless cuts being made by Xbox at the moment. Purportedly up to half of the devs behind Bethesda's MMO have lost their jobs, and a former designer on the fantasy sandbox has been quick to point out the game's unsung glories.

In the wake of the redundancies, Andrew Young, a senior content designer on Elder Scrolls Online who worked on the online RPG from 2012 through to 2024, vented his frustrations on Twitter. "I'm just so angry today," he says. "People will never know the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making ESO or how we basically funded other failing projects while never getting enough resources to really keep up with our release cadence."

He adds that fans may never realize just how integral Elder Scrolls Online was to Bethesda. "Talking to people today and realizing there’s really no one left and no changing it now makes my heart ache," he says. "For the people, our game, who we were as a team and a studio. This is a serious loss, and I don’t think people know how much."

No specifics are given, but my mind immediately jumped to Blades and Legends, two free mobile spin-offs that came out in the 2010s. The former was all about constantly getting into swordfights, while the latter was a digital card game. Both have since been unceremoniously closed, and Young could be talking about other projects within the umbrella of Bathesda's parent company ZeniMax, either.

Elder Scrolls Online has been a reliable money-spinner, bringing in upwards of $2 billion across its lifetime to date. Those are decent earnings, especially when it comes to the currently over-saturated live-service and MMO market. The game adopted a new updated schedule in 2025, moving from yearly changes to a more seasonal approach, with Season Zero: Dawn and Dusk due to finish tomorrow, July 8.

Hopefully, this all helps those impacted by the job losses - which are expected to total 3,200 across Xbox and Microsoft by the end of the year - to find new opportunities. And maybe a little more respect will be put on Tamriel's Second Era as well.

Hitman and 007 First Light dev IO Interactive regains "full ownership" of its mysterious online RPG project after Xbox reportedly pulled funding

As Bethesda Game Studios plans for the Switch 2 release of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, it reassures fans that the RPG remake will indeed be "available on a physical game card" – an assertion that catches the eye, to say the least.

In case you're out of the loop, fans of physical media have had a heck of a week. Yesterday, Sony announced that it's ending physical disc production for new games on PlayStation consoles in 2028, stating "general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs" – and, boy, did that cause a stir.

Unsurprisingly, folks aren't thrilled… and it's not too difficult to see why. The move away from discs and cartridges has been a hot topic. Bethesda, however, isn't dipping out of producing physical copies of its games just yet – and it's reassuring players that Oblivion Remastered on Switch 2 is no exception in that regard.

A new post from the company (which, mind you, went live mere hours after Sony announced its plan to axe physical disc production for PlayStation) reads that "The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered Deluxe Edition is available on a physical game card."

You know, "for those seeking to add to their collection!" The attached video shows the cartridge itself being waved around front and center, just to get the message across. That's totally just a conveniently timed coincidence and most definitely not a jab at Sony… right? Well, it's not like Bethesda names any names here or anything – but it does appear the community finds the timing amusing.

"This after Sony announces that they'll end disc production in 2028," as one fan's reply puts it. Another jests, "Alright, Bethesda. You got my attention!"

Honestly, I'm glad – joke or not – that Bethesda is still letting fans choose between going digital or physical. It's not as though Sony is the only big name to make moves away from the latter, anyway, with Nintendo having sparked similar controversy with its introduction of game-key cards on the Switch 2 last year.

That wasn't a complete wipe of physical copies for Nintendo's console, however, but it shows that times are certainly changing.

As someone who enjoys collecting games myself, I do hope more companies follow suit here and let consumers choose whether or not they want digital or physical releases. Choice is the key here, I'd say – and stripping that away is the core of the contention.

"Pretend we kept patching Oblivion. What would we have done if we kept supporting it?" – Todd Howard explains the "thought exercise" Bethesda went through for its remaster.

Bethesda has finally confirmed the release date for the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, but it's not inspiring a huge amount of confidence based on Skyrim on Switch 2 and Oblivion Remastered everywhere else.

Bethesda Game Studios closed out the Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase earlier this year with news about its library coming to Switch 2, including the announcement of Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition and news about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, but the big finale was that Oblivion Remastered would also be coming. And despite a Nintendo Direct no-show earlier this month, Bethesda has released a new trailer confirming the port will release on August 11, and despite word it would be a game-key card release, it will release on a proper cartridge after all.

The trailer is mostly a live-action segment showing the iconic Adoring Fan NPC from the 2006 classic following a man around, before showing a teeny-tiny bit of gameplay from the port at the end. Now, considering Skyrim's Switch 2 port was described as running "like wet ass" at launch (which, surely a wet ass would be smooth… Not important…) before getting a fix a few months later, the lack of gameplay isn't exactly inspiring confidence.

That's not to mention the fact that Skyrim is a game from 2011 with minimal improvements, whereas the remastered overhaul of Oblivion still has pretty terrible performance on PC, so how will the handheld handle it? "Will it actually work though?" one YouTube commenter asks, as another speculates: "There is a reason 80% of this video doesn't show any gameplay at all."

On top of Oblivion Remastered running poorly on other platforms, it hasn't been updated in some time, so some are hoping this new port will result in love for other versions. The YouTube comments on the trailer focus on this, with one user saying, "Please fix the performance issues on other consoles first," while another asks: "Does this mean it’ll get some patches for other consoles? I was bummed by how little post-launch support this got."

As Fallout 3 and New Vegas remake hopes and rumors persist, Bethesda's Todd Howard says he's actually "anti-remake" and prefers remasters like Oblivion's instead.

Similar to GTA 6, the anticipation for The Elder Scrolls 6 is so astronomically high that any firsthand information about it, no matter how granular, is relevant in the overall conversation surrounding the project. That's even more true when it's coming from someone as integral to production as Todd Howard, executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios and game director on The Elder Scrolls 6. Full disclosure: this one's very granular. Like, if The Elder Scrolls 6 release date is Santa Monica State Beach, this is a single grain of sand on the docks.

Talking to EW, Howard repeated some stuff we already know about the game, like the fact that it's the "biggest project" in the studio's pipeline, and that "the majority of the studio" is working on it. That said, he did touch on arguably the biggest controversy BGS is facing at the moment: the fact that its games are taking a really freakin' long time to make these days.

It's now been eight years since The Elder Scrolls 6 was revealed, and Xbox's new CEO, Asha Sharma, is reportedly keen on shortening development cycles at BGS, so Howard's comment is particularly timely.

"We know we need to get it right and it's been a long time," Howard says.

Thanks, Todd. It really has been a long time, and I ain't getting any younger. Obviously, Howard simply acknowledging the lengthiness of the game's development cycle doesn't do anything to shorten it, but it's nice to know the guy at the top is aware that people are starting to lose their patience.

The Elder Scrolls 6 was a no-show at this year's Summer Game Fest, meaning it'll likely be months until we get an update, possibly during this year's Game Awards in December. Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty recently confirmed that he's seen the game in motion and said it looks "amazing" and is "coming along well," adding, "we'll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time."

Elder Scrolls and Fallout developer Bethesda "will be fine" as "they make all the money," but layoffs for the rest of ZeniMax "have begun," Duke Nukem co-creator says

ZeniMax Media, the holding company overseeing video game developers and publishers like Bethesda Game Studios, might be in the midst of some pretty heavy layoffs.

Founded in 1999 as the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax now operates under Microsoft's Xbox division following its acquisition in 2021. Although it boasts various successful titles at the house of Bethesda – RPGs like Fallout 4 and Skyrim included – it could be facing some financial trouble.

Duke Nukem co-creator George Broussard confirms as much in a new online post, alleging that layoffs are underway at ZeniMax.

"Getting word that layoffs at Zenimax have begun," he writes. "Heard rumblings recently that the cuts may be much deeper than you expect. Buckle up!"

What does that mean for ongoing projects like The Elder Scrolls 6? In response to a comment stating the layoffs might not affect anyone working on Fallout or The Elder Scrolls, Broussard seems to agree they indeed don't, asking, "Oh, is that public now? That's exactly what I heard a few days ago."

As for Bethesda itself, Broussard doesn't appear to be too concerned: "Bethesda will be fine. They make all the money." It's certainly an interesting position to hold, taking into account the ties between Bethesda and ZeniMax, but I suppose it makes sense.

Xbox has been going through a time as of late, with reports of studio closures floating about the web left, right, and center. Broussard himself has spoken about it in a recent thread.

"This is the hard truth of it all," it reads. "Earnings and profit. But it is also way amplified when there is a regime change in a mega-corp, and everything changes, and new plans are put in place. The teams and employees pay the price for years of mismanagement of old execs."

He goes on to say, "a zillion devs and lots of studios are going to burn for the sins of the fathers," and "there is a lot of Xbox mgmt to blame here going back 15 years."

It's worth a full read-through, but it's admittedly not an easy one to digest. It's shaky for devs and publishers everywhere right now, and it seems it's only becoming less and less stable.

Fallout: New Vegas remake rumors heat up as Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake leaker says previous reports are credible

Bethesda Game Studios' The Elder Scrolls 6 just celebrated a dubious anniversary: it's officially been eight years since the game was announced, and we've seen and heard almost nothing since. As development costs and hardware prices surge, it seems nothing but divine intervention can stop huge projects like those from taking even longer to complete in the future. As the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Asha Sharma might be as close as we're gonna get.

According to The Information (via Reuters), Sharma has plans to pump additional funding into Xbox's most popular franchises. The reported plan is to give developers like Bethesda Game Studios and Halo Studios the financial backing to speed up development on tentpole franchises Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and Halo. That would, in theory, shorten development cycles and put sequels in the hands of gamers faster than what's happening currently.

I know we're conditioned to scrutinize anything a CEO does or says with extreme skepticism, and we're absolutely right to do that, but it's hard to disagree with the fundamentals here, pending details. There is no official release window for The Elder Scrolls 6, but estimates range from as "early" as 2027 to 2029, with the most cynical extending into the 2030s. Its predecessor, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, released in 2011, meaning a 20-year gap between the two games isn't out of the question. Consider that Skyrim itself released just five years after The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, and you can see the sheer absurdity of that timeline in context.

Of course, Xbox's new leadership has yet to be truly tested, but reports indicate mass layoffs are incoming after Sharma herself admitted in a recent email to employees that Microsoft's gaming division has become "over extended." Amid the company's big 100-day reset, a plan to crank out the brand's most popular games without further reduction of workforce could be a much-needed gesture of goodwill at an extremely low moment for Xbox.

Microsoft considered cutting Xbox off entirely and making it easier to sell, report says

Today marks exactly eight years since Bethesda revealed the Elder Scrolls 6 teaser from 2018, and all this time later, we've seen virtually nothing else from the project. Bethesda and Xbox's silence on the long, long, long-awaited follow-up to Skyrim is remarkable, but Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty has broken his silence with the tiniest of updates on one of the biggest games on the release date calendar.

BGS executive producer and game director Todd Howard has gone on the record to say Elder Scrolls 6 was announced too early, which seems like a bit of an understatement as we approach 10 years from that infamously vague teaser, but Booty tells Variety that the decision to reveal such a massively anticipated project is one of the trickier parts of his job.

"I would say one of the more challenging balancing acts of someone in a job like mine is balancing that you want to go show the world all the cool stuff you're working on, and you want to get them excited early, but we also know that we want to wait till the right moment," says Booty. "And when you decide to show it, you want it to be the best you've got. And also that when you show the game, you're also giving them a promise of, hey, it's coming soon."

Booty seems to be directly acknowledging the aforementioned premature reveal of The Elder Scrolls 6 here. With every day that passes without a significant update on the game, the big green elephant in the room at Xbox gradually swells, as does frustration from the RPG community who's been waiting almost a decade. That said, Booty assures that what he's seen from gameplay footage will be worth the wait.

"I can tell you, having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd and seen 'Elder Scrolls' playing, it looks amazing, and it's coming along well," he says. "And we'll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time."

"The majority of this building is working on The Elder Scrolls 6": Todd Howard says Bethesda's full focus is on the RPG it announced in 2018, and "it's so different than Starfield, so different than Fallout"

The end of Summer Game Fest 2026 is upon us, and Bethesda Game Studios was a no-show in most fans' minds as it (once again) gave us nothing about The Elder Scrolls 6.

Yes, that's – sadly – right. The Elder Scrolls 6 did not, in fact, make an appearance during last night's Xbox Games Showcase, despite many of us huffing on the hopium that it would.

It comes as no surprise that reactions to the event, which saw only evergreen Bethesda titles like Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Online get some screen time, aren't exactly positive. Heck, it's been a whopping eight years since The Elder Scrolls 6 debuted at E3 in 2018... If you can call it "debuted," anyway, seeing as it was just a sub-minute teaser

Over on Reddit, the conversation is taking off, with one person writing, "The one thing I was hoping for, even if it was just something small, was TES 6, and we still have nothing after eight years. I don't want to be negative, but at this point, I'm sick of waiting to hear nothing."

A comment jokes, "I can't wait to be a gaming grandpa to play this." I mean, I was a teenager when Bethesda unveiled its "trailer" myself, and now I'm 26… so, yeah.

Over on a separate thread, someone declared they"re "so depressed" after SGF. "It's been almost 15 years since the last Elder Scrolls game and nine years since the teaser for the new game. I'm so tired, man.... I'm at an all-time low." Replies see folks agree, with one reading, "I hate that I feel this way now, but I almost don’t care about it anymore."

That's how long it's been – and, as one user puts it, "At this point, it is more likely we will get the announcement of Skyrim for PS6 before TES 6." A painful but increasingly possible reality, I'd say… We did just get Skyrim on the Nintendo Switch 2, after all.

Another tired Elder Scrolls fan sums the entire situation and vibe up perfectly in their own post: "Give it up for year nine." They then jest: "See you all next year."

Will we see anything next year? I'm not sure, honestly, and I'm losing hope. Even Todd Howard himself told us to "just pretend we didn't didn't announce it" – so, um, yeah. He also admitted The Elder Scrolls 6 is still "a while" off, shooting down our hopes and dreams.

It's rough out here as an Elder Scrolls fan, honestly, and I'm growing tired of browsing the best Skyrim mods in hopes of spicing up the fifth entry for the hundredth time.

Fingers crossed that we get something… anything… soon from Bethesda. I'm not sure that the community can hang on much longer without more Elder Scrolls 6.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Skywind, the hugely ambitious fan project that aims to remake Morrowind in Skyrim's engine, just got its first update in almost two years and it sounds closer to completion than ever before.

Skywind was first revealed to the public shortly after Skyrim's official launch about 14 years ago, billing itself as a faithful recreation of Morrowind, only this time with a more modern look, a full voice cast, and all the benefits you'd expect from about three console generations of gaming improvements.

The Skywind team have now released another development update after the last one in 2024, and things seem to be progressing quite nicely. Some encouraging stats include the fact that 2D art is about 99% complete, 3D art is 90% complete, visual effects are 80% done, writing is 96% finished, and voice acting is at 92%.

Of course, game dev progress isn't a complete science - these numbers are just an estimation. For the voice acting part, for example, the team is only waiting for three actors to hand in their submissions while 50 others work on retakes.

"Across all department, the most difficult groundwork is already in place," the video update explains, "allowing more pieces of Skywind to move toward completion. In 2026, progress on the project remains steady, but a handful of bottlenecks still stand in our way."

The dev vlog goes on to squash a common misconception within the fandom: "That Skywind has been worked on by the same small group of people, steadily chipping away at it for over a decade." In actuality, over a thousand volunteers have stepped in and out of the project over the years.

"The project has functioned more like a relay race, with the initial contributors having long since passed the baton." Since then, volunteers have "given what they could, when they could, to an idea they believed in." And judging by the footage shown off, it looks absolutely lush.

The Skywind team is still looking for help from more contributors over on its official website.

While we wait, check out everything we know about The Elder Scrolls 6.

ZeniMax Online Studios founder and former The Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor left the company after parent studio Microsoft canceled his MMO Project Blackbird in 2025, but even a year later, he takes it personally when people compare ESO to World of Warcraft.

It "still gets under my skin," Firor tells MinnMax host Ben Hanson in a new interview, when anyone refers to ESO as "a WoW clone" – partly because he flat-out disagrees, and partly because approaching Elder Scrolls Online that way makes the game experience worse for anyone expecting World of Warcraft in Tamriel.

"All of the feedback that we got was, 'This game isn't like WoW enough,'" Firor continues, "and it's like, 'No, it's not a WoW clone. Yes, it's multiplayer fantasy game. So is Dark Age of Camelot, right? Is WoW a Dark Age of Camelot clone? No.'"

Firor is an expert on what MMO is or isn't like another. He served as Dark Age of Camelot's producer in 2001, he has nearly 30 years of credits on some of the most influential massively multiplayer online games in history, including 1997 MMO Silent Death Online, 1998 MMORPG Aliens Online, and more. So when it comes to a relatively more modern game like ESO, he can say confidently, "Every game takes things that the games before them did and mixes them together in a different soup, and it's awesome."

"We had Elder Scrolls, and so we were fantasy," Firor continues, "built to be a multiplayer game – like that was the mandate when I got hired, was make the Elder Scrolls MMO, and I did. But, systems-wise, it is so different from WoW."

It does, at least, seem like most people who still play both games agree. In one popular Reddit thread comparing the two, the top comment summarizes what seems to be the general consensus: play ESO for the story, and WoW for the power progression. Another comment says the mere act of pitting the two against each other is as useless as contrasting "tea and coffee" to "absinthe and Mt. Dew."

Firor expresses similar indifference. "WoW's a fantastic game," he says. "It's probably my second-most played game of all time." It just makes no substantial impact on The Elder Scrolls Online, he insists.

"If you sit down and play it like it's a WoW clone, you're not going to have fun at all," he warns. "If you sit down and play it like an Elder Scrolls game, like Elder Scrolls Online, it's a fantastic game."

Elder Scrolls Online director still secretly plays the MMO, even after he left the studio when Microsoft killed his dream game: "I'm in guilds, and they don't know who I am."

Zenimax Online founder and Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor left the studio in 2025, confirming months later that his departure was a direct result of Microsoft's cancelling his dream MMO, Project Blackbird. You might think that colors his feelings about ESO, but no – it's apparently still one of his favorite games, and he's continuing to play it to this day, even as his guildmates have no idea who he is.

"I did take two or three months off just to get away mentally, but I started playing again," Firor says in a new interview with MinnMax. He says he's quite enjoying experiencing the game purely as a player rather than a developer, since he no longer needs to jump into Slack to report every bug he sees when playing on live servers.

"I don't have that anymore," Firor says. "and not having that is actually very freeing, because I can actually just concentrate on the game and not on the problems. It's such a different mindset just to jump in. I'm in guilds, and they don't know who I am. So I just play and it's a lot of fun. I'm having the best time since probably 2017 or 2018 in the game right now."

Firor is perfectly willing to acknowledge the irony of hyping up his own game even when he's no longer responsible for it. "I was on a podcast last year where they wanted me to name my five favorite games," Firor says, "and I named ESO. I actually semi-apologized for it in the podcast because it's such a loser move nominating your own game for your favorite game. But it is. It's a really, really good game. And I've spent so much of my life building it and living in it that I appreciate it for what it is even today."

He admits that he still texts the devs who remain at the ESO studio about the game on occasion, "but I do it a lot less than I used to." Even now, he's still seeing some of the fruits of his own labours, since it takes "probably up to 12 to 16 months to make content in ESO. So they're still shipping stuff that I knew about, that I knew was coming and I was involved in the planning with. But they've changed it in subtle ways that I think is fantastic and really smart."

It's easy to understand why Firor feels so strongly about Elder Scrolls Online – after all, he founded Zenimax Online way back in 2007 and spent 18 years with the company, shepherding ESO through its early development and a rocky launch as it eventually became one of the most successful modern MMOs. That's a substantial chunk of a lifetime to devote to one game, and it's clear Firor takes pride in that game's success.

It's also pretty obvious why somebody who takes so much pride in their work might be so distressed about having their dream project killed. "Project Blackbird was the game I had waited my entire career to create," Firor said at the time, "and having it canceled led to my resignation." At least he still has ESO.

Elder Scrolls Online is still one of the best MMOs you can play today.

The Elder Scrolls fans believe they may have just uncovered one of the best-kept secrets in the franchise after 28 years, and all it took was giving into their inner pervert. Thanks to their sacrifices, we now know that anyone who tries stealing a glance up a lady's skirt in The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard will be immediately thunderstruck by developer Bethesda's all-knowing smiley face.

The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP) encyclopedia shares the discovery on its Twitter in an April 16 post. It begins, I imagine, with a trembling whisper, "This may be one of the longest running secrets in the history of The Elder Scrolls we are about to reveal, this has seemingly stayed hidden for 28 years from general knowledge."

"Thanks to the ongoing work on the Redguard Unity project," the site continues, with a nod to the open-source project attempting to bring 1998 game Redguard to modern engine Unity, "we have learned that if you were to try to look up the skirt of a female character in that game, you will find a smiley face emoji."

UESP shares proof in the form of a knee-high creepshot angled up toward a Redguard character's crotch. Except, instead of human anatomy, the photo reveals a black abyss starting at the woman's thighs. In between her legs, there's a yellow smiley face whose square eyes feel reproachful in their largeness, as if they can look into your heart and see whatever it is that makes you want to witness 32-bit underwear.

I'm impressed – Bethesda was installing anti-creep guardrails in 1998 while other developers, even now, sometimes encourage the behavior with upskirt achievements. At least these achievements are often paired with justified retaliation from the character they're associated with. I appreciate that despite Nier: Automata's What Are You Doing? achievement for its protagonist 2B, unlocking her collaboration outfit in Stellar Blade causes her to kick you in the face with an unforgiving high heel.

But because upskirts have now spent decades as a gross, alienating video game convention, I'm also certain UESP isn't the first to discover The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard secret smiley. It might be the only one willing to admit it – for the sake of its archeological efforts, you know – but I've seen too many unholy 4chan threads to think no one else has tried it.

Then we come back to the question – why does anyone want to see 32-bit underwear? To answer this, I travel through horny human history, and I doth quote Shakespeare: "Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese."

Resident Evil director's new AAA studio is "joining forces" with Stellar Blade developer Shift Up "to create a masterpiece of a game" – and no, this isn't an April Fool's joke.

What if, instead of using magic and primitive weapons like axes and swords, we fought dragons using our words and intellect? Such a proposition roughs out a new mod for Skyrim from streamer and YouTuber Blurbs.

Essentially, the modification makes it so that your battles against the winged menaces of Tamriel are actually in-depth discussions about the geopolitical issues of the day. That's right, no shields or bows and arrows, just pure discourse to decide who wins and who loses. The marketplace of ideas in full flow.

As you can see in his footage playing through his own bizarre creation, fights are now debates, with you and your adversary both expected to stand at the podium and deliver your stance on a particular topic. It could be whether public shouting counts as free speech, or if medication is causing a rise in vampirism across the land, or the morality of Daedra worship.

It's all on the table, with actual voice lines from your winged-and-scaled opponent. It's goofy and haphazard, but fairly convincing, and you can watch Blurbs put the whole thing together in the above video, starting at 6:30.

Blurbs is an active modder and software developer who occasionally takes ideas on Twitch for ways to modify and break Skyrim. Someone had the bright idea for this, leading us here, and to be real, I don't hate it. I've got a soft spot for just the right amount of text-driven choices in RPGs, and this hits that in its own absurd way.

Or maybe I've just always wanted to challenge a dragon on the legitimacy of the sitting monarch. Who knows. Either way, this is probably a win for intellectualism, right?

New Skyrim mod turns Bethesda's RPG into the "ultimate" MMO I've always wanted by transforming NPCs into real players

Every time a Bethesda RPG launches, even the studio's most stalwart fans know to prepare themselves for an array of bugs ranging from the amusing to the infuriating. But that's not a modern problem, as the bugs have been around ever since the first Elder Scrolls title launched way back in 1994. Series co-creator Vijay Lakshman figured these issues were more or less inevitable when you built RPGs of this scale.

"The Elder Scrolls was (and continues to be) a very complex system of statistical generation of appropriate events," Lakshman, who served as lead designer on The Elder Scrolls: Arena, said in an interview for the January 2014 issue of GamesTM. "This kind of game is difficult to test because you simply cannot duplicate every test instance. That being said, this system gives you an open-ended world and allows a player to play infinitely. I think the trade-off has proven to be acceptable by the fans."

Arguably, the glitches were a lot worse in the '90s, when players weren't guaranteed to have internet access and you didn't get patches automatically distributed through a launcher like Steam. Bethesda did issue some patches, and those were rolled into the later Deluxe Edition release, but many of the players who bought the buggier launch version of the game were simply out of luck.

Still, Bethesda might've earned a little slack because of how small it was at the time. "Back then we had small testing budgets and most of the testing was done by me and a small team of high school interns," Lakshman explained. "It was both crazy and inspiring that such a small team could've gotten so much done in a relatively short space of time."

In fact, the company was so small at the time of Arena's launch that the devs packaged and shipped the RPG themselves, another anecdote that Lakshman shared in the same interview. Bethesda has obviously grown enormously in the years since Arena launched, and so has The Elder Scrolls itself, moving from procedurally generated expanses to the massive, hand-crafted worlds of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim.

But by now, we've been waiting for The Elder Scrolls 6 for well over a decade. Bethesda's clearly no longer under the same time crunch that Lakshman and the rest of the original team were, and maybe that means TES6 will be a little more polished than its predecessors at launch. I wouldn't hold my breath for a truly bug-free experience, though.

Here are all the upcoming Bethesda games you need to know about.

It's no secret that games like Starfield and Fallout 76 stand out among past Bethesda Game Studios greats, shaking up the developer's usual formula for something new – and Todd Howard knows it, too.

The Bethesda boss himself admits as much during a recent roundtable interview. Our own Josh West posited that Starfield and Fallout 76 are more divisive than RPG gems like Skyrim, and Howard agrees to an extent – but that's not unique to them, as series like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls came across similarly different at first.

"If you look back at the beginning of Elder Scrolls, beginning of Fallout, they're a little bit the same," as Howard puts it.

"And then, you find an audience that loves that," he continues. "So, I think it's true that Fallout 76 and Starfield clearly – they're creatively different than what we had done [before]. And we really wanted to do that. When you're doing a certain type of thing for, in my case, 20 years, we want to try some other things and learn from that. We have ideas that we want to get out there."

That's more than understandable, I'd say – even as a Skyrim stan myself.

Sure, I've been waiting what feels like a century for The Elder Scrolls 6 now – but I respect that Bethesda opted to take a bit of a fresh direction with a space RPG like Starfield, even if it's not my own jam. It's got its niche now, after all.

As Howard says, "we're fortunate those games have found, in the scheme of things, giant audiences that let us keep doing things in them." Bethesda's community is all the more diverse as a result.

He concludes on games like Starfield and Fallout 76 that, "even though they're a bit off the core path of the single-player games that we have been doing, we're just fortunate to have the success that we've had with them." I'd argue that's a valid stance to take.

While I do hope Bethesda's back on its ol' Elder Scrolls grind now – which it sounds as though it is, as Howard previously admitted "the majority" of devs are on TES 6 – I get it.

It's never bad to try something new, and I'd be lying if I said I don't ever want Bethesda to give future ideas that aren't their usual Fallout or Elder Scrolls entries a go. Better than yet another Skyrim port, right?

As Starfield fans dub PS5 port "unplayable," Bethesda says it's "narrowed" the problems "down to a small number of causes" and is working to fix the RPG

Of all the various ways to enjoy Skyrim out there, from a heavily modded PC experience to one on the go via Switch 2, I've always wanted the ability to play it with other Elder Scrolls fans – and, now, it seems I've got one thanks to Keizaal Online.

Sure, we've got Skyrim Together already – but I've been yearning for an online multiplayer experience that feels more akin to something like The Elder Scrolls Online… an MMO, but not quite as big or large-scale. That's what Keizaal Online, as spotted by TheGamer, appears to offer, allowing players to step into the shoes of iconic NPCs.

A mind-boggling trailer lets us take a look at the mod, and impressed would be an understatement on my part.

The capacity for immersive roleplaying – whether around the fire in The Bannered Mare or in battle with the Imperials – seems to be off the charts. It's like a hilariously chaotic, almost surreal mashup of Red Dead Online and Skyrim… something I never thought I'd say.

As per the official Keizaal Online website, everything unfolds in a "synchronized, persistent Tamriel" – a Tamriel that currently boasts over 600 active players, too.

Keizaal Online's creators dub it "the ultimate Skyrim multiplayer roleplaying experience," and I'm honestly inclined to believe them. Once again, there are no NPCs – everything is run by the players themselves, something I've never experienced in "official" MMOs like The Elder Scrolls Online (as fun as I may find them).

Trading happens between players as well, so no, we can't just keep running back and forth to Belethor.

Perhaps most excitingly, we can sign up to play now (just make sure you own the Special or Anniversary Edition of the game) – and the full release is also coming soon. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a public playtest to participate in… and many spells to cast.

Skyrim lead says Bethesda is "going to feel it" when Todd Howard leaves because he's always touched everything during the development process

The Elder Scrolls 6 and long-time Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard apparently touches every part of the developer's games during production, and struggles not to, in fact, according to one former Skyrim lead.

"He's struggled throughout his entire career in this letting go process," Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith said while talking about Howard's leadership style in an interview with Kiwi Talkz.

"I mean, if what I said earlier is, he had a light touch on everything and then deep dives into the things he wanted. That's a light touch literally on everything, which means that one of the issues that the studio struggled with occasionally was "'Well, we can't move forward because Todd hasn't had a chance to look at it,'" Nesmith recalled of his time at the developer.

Nesmith goes on to say that the studio obviously isn't completely blocked whenever Howard's not around "because the games got produced on time, which is not a common thing to happen in this industry" where projects are pretty frequently delayed. Bethesda would often "have it done excellently and have it done on time, but it does mean that when he leaves, they're going to feel it."

Todd Howard is so well known since he's the guy who shows up on stage or on camera every time Bethesda's about to unleash one of its big RPGs onto the world. But it's relatively normal for devs or otherwise to want to move on from a company after literal decades. Howard has suggested that The Elder Scrolls 6 might be his last game ever, though he's hinted at the future of the Fallout game series more than a few times, too.

Skyrim was "the holy s*** moment" at Bethesda, says veteran Pete Hines: "You have to be concerned about us if you think you're going to win game of the year"

You don't need me to remind you about how big a deal Skyrim was (and still is) - it's one of the best-selling, most-modded, memeable, and influential games ever made - but for Bethesda Game Studios, the studio that developed the giant hit, the game was its first "Holy S*** moment."

That's according to Pete Hines, the company's former publishing lead who had been at Bethesda for a whopping 24 years. He told Firezide Chat that Morrowind allowed the company to stay afloat during a rocky financial time and Oblivion solidified the developer as an unignorable presence in the RPG space, but "the Holy S*** moment was actually Skyrim."

Even with Fallout 3, the industry veteran explained that there's "people who love that game and people who never played it, but that wasn't a thing with Skyrim" because "everybody played Skyrim - that was the thing that made us feel like we've arrived, we are legit."

Hines even claimed Skyrim is what made other developers think twice about winning GOTY awards. "You have to be concerned about us if you think you're going to win game of the year. You have to take us seriously now. We have broken out role playing games into a whole huge group of people who have never played an RPG before, but played Skyrim because it just looked like fun," he added.

He took some time to remember what Morrowind and Oblivion did for the company, too. Bethesda's funkiest game Morrowind "bought us a grace period" at a time when the developer "really needed a hit" to keep the lights on. He then credits director Todd Howard for championing Oblivion as an early Xbox 360 game to turn the adventure into a "poster child for what next-gen graphics look [like]." As one of the hit console's first big RPGs, "we were the consensus game of the year off of Oblivion."

But he's still right - Skyrim is arguably the game that made Bethesda a household name even to people who weren't in the weeds in video game news. My university housemates knew the Skyrim memes. Family members who don't know what a Starfield is have played Skyrim. It broke containment, if you will, and travelled well outside of the crowds who already knew and loved the genre.

"It makes me sick": Skyrim modder with 475,000 downloads, fed up with "daily harassment," abandons modding after "thousands of hours" of work on what she calls "the most advanced follower to ever exist"

Today, Bethesda is one of the biggest game studios in the world, responsible for some of the most notable franchises in the industry, but things were much different back in the '90s. Then, Bethesda was a much smaller studio not far off from today's indie outfits, but unlike modern indie devs, they didn't have the benefit of digital distribution. No, the folks who made The Elder Scrolls: Arena had to go straight from making the game to packaging and shipping the thing themselves.

"We had a great team of hardworking developers who truly put in their best effort," according to Vijay Lakshman, lead designer of that first Elder Scrolls title. As he explained in an interview for the January 2014 issue of GamesTM, "No one wore only one hat, and we were all familiar with what everyone did."

That extended to the process of actually shipping the RPG to stores. "We even spent time shrink-wrapping the games ourselves, as Bethesda was the publisher and developer," Lakshman explained. "We were in the loading dock and we learned how to assemble boxes, inserts and use the heat gun. Talk about seeing a product through from concept to box wrap! We did it all."

Famously, The Elder Scrolls: Arena was not meant to be a traditional RPG, but rather a combat-focused game where you would lead a team of gladiators to fame and fortune. That plan changed mid-development, and it seems that change might've been a factor in dramatically limiting the game's initial sales.

"At the end of development, we missed our Christmas deadline, which is really serious for a small developer/publisher like Bethesda Softworks," Arena writer and designer Ted Peterson said in a 2001 interview. "We released in the doldrums of March, which is disastrous. That, coupled with the fact that the distributors discovered we had essentially not made the arena combat game we said we were making, meant we initially shipped something like 3,000 units of the game."

Well, hey, I guess that meant lighter work for the devs shipping out those initial copies, but it doesn't seem that the studio took it so lightly. While studios in the '90s didn't hold the same inflated expectations for game sales as modern publishers, 3,000 units was still bad. "We were sure we had screwed the company and we'd go out of business," Peterson said.

Yet once players started to get their hands on Arena, things started to change. "Month by month, though, people kept buying it, hearing about it word of mouth, and after a while, it turned out we had a minor 'cult' hit," Peterson explained. Ultimately, sales estimates for Arena suggested it sold around 120,000 copies, and its sequels would obviously prove to be much, much bigger.

Lakshman left Bethesda after the release of Arena – which, coincidentally, happened to be about the time Todd Howard joined the studio. Under Howard's leadership, titles like Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim would become breakout hits, and Lakshman had nothing but effusive things to say about the modern era of Elder Scrolls titles.

"I love them," Lakshman said. "The folks at Bethesda kept the franchise alive, poured their resources into it and turned it into a winner. They deserve it. I’m proud that my team could’ve done so much with so little, but I’m really awed at how much more complex the storylines, technology and adventures have grown, and how artfully woven the franchise has become. I take my hat off to the entire team at Bethesda today."

The Elder Scrolls 6 could still be years away, but with Bethesda's history in making some of the best RPGs of all time, here's hoping it's worth the wait.

As the (seemingly) eternal wait for Bethesda Game Studios' hotly anticipated RPG The Elder Scrolls 6 continues, fans are finding creative new ways to challenge themselves in the series' previous entries – including completing all of them while taking no damage whatsoever.

GinoMachino, a content creator and streamer known best for his impressive Dark Souls and Elden Ring challenge runs, has gone and boggled all of our minds again by *checks notes* tackling every single mainline Elder Scrolls game – all the way from Arena to Skyrim – in one go… while taking 0 damage to boot.

It took over 11 hours to ace his run, judging by his recent live streams on YouTube, but he's truly done it.

"After months of preparation and practice," GinoMachino writes in a post on the amazing feat, "I've managed to beat all Elder Scrolls games 1 through 5 in a row without taking a single point of damage. A run many thought would be impossible."

And, as he amusingly adds, "If Elder Scrolls 6 comes out in my lifetime (surely), I look forward to doing this again with it included." Aha, yeah… fingers crossed it does.

I'd recommend giving the full stream combo a watch – the moment that GinoMachino takes Alduin down and exclaims he's done it "first try as well" is one to not miss, at least, and as fans point out, the whole not taking any damage thing is seriously awesome.

"There are always bones or items stepped on that fling themselves at your leg for physics reasons that don't make sense," after all, proving that GinoMachino is better than all of us.

And, you know, a lot luckier, too – compared to me anyway, as I sit here with thousands upon thousands of hours in Skyrim alone across various platforms and not even one single run with 0 damage. Above all, though, his breeze through Arena has me perplexed.

I think it took me ages to survive the Imperial Dungeons and actually, uh, get into the meat of the game… but then again, I'm no GinoMachino, that's for certain.

"It makes me sick": Skyrim modder with 475,000 downloads, fed up with "daily harassment," abandons modding after "thousands of hours" of work on what she calls "the most advanced follower to ever exist."

As a longtime Warrior of Light, I've clocked over 5,000 hours in Final Fantasy 14 – and, yes, I'd benefit from touching grass. Hundreds of those hours have gone into hardcore raiding, while hundreds more have been spent tending to my cozy virtual home in the Lavender Beds. Since the ill-received Dawntrail expansion dropped, though, I've felt myself losing interest in Eorzea and all its previously enthralling charms.

With "Mostly Negative" reviews nearly two years post-launch, the DLC failed to pull me in (and apparently, many others) the same way its predecessors did – but my MMO fatigue may have found a cure in another genre gem: The Elder Scrolls Online. Although it never quite managed to lock me in for years at a time like Final Fantasy 14, it's a game I've come back to sporadically since first playing it as an Elder Scrolls-obsessed teen back in 2014.

I've timed my recent comeback perfectly, it seems. ZeniMax Online Studios' big 2026 roadmap is finally beginning to come to fruition – smaller updates, the new seasonal model, and all – and I'm afraid I've found myself properly "locked in," so to speak… the very way I was with Square Enix's own MMO for so, so long. I'm logging in daily without fail, finishing zones to 100% completion, and most importantly, looking forward to the future.

I used to be an adventurer like you

The Elder Scrolls Online is beginning to feel like an entirely new MMO, following Update 49 and the ever-exciting Season Zero: Dawn and Dusk commencing April 2. After attending an early preview of the 2026 Seasons Direct, I'm all the more certain of this – heck, I've spent the last few weeks grinding out my dailies in anticipation of the new Night Market event, set in the surreal Daedric realm of Fargrave.

Finally, there's something new to look forward to. As ZeniMax says, the studio wants "to get away from" just "sticking to the same formula" it's used for over a decade now. It's not simply another paid zone-themed expansion with some quests and side dungeons thrown in anymore; there's real incentive to do PvE content with events like the Night Market – one inclusive of all players with rewards dependent on choice – and PvP, too.

I'm not a Cyrodiil frequenter myself, but my more combative pals can't wait for the new Veterancy PvP progression gimmick. Meanwhile, Season Zero is keeping me on the edge of my own seat with more than just the Night Market. I'm hungry to explore Solo Dungeons, a coming system that has me especially intrigued as a fan of the Trust feature in Final Fantasy 14, and the first Elder Scrolls Online trial to grace the base game in 12 years.

I fight… because I must

Yes, 12 years. The Crimson Veldt, as ZeniMax is dubbing its new 12-player trial, is set in Hircine's Hunting Grounds. It's shaking up the usual lush forest we'd expect with canyons and savannas, though, further carving out The Elder Scrolls Online's future content as something unique – something even longtime fans of the RPG series (like myself) wouldn't expect. Best of all, much like the Night Market, it's accessible to every base game player.

Part of my move away from The Elder Scrolls Online came down to my inability to enjoy harder or more "late game" content with friends who didn't have ESO Plus memberships or every expansion ever unlocked. ZeniMax says it wants to make the MMO a game for all, and that's evident through the coming updates. Not only is much of the seasonal content open to the community in its entirety, but it also caters to every flavor of fan.

Take the High Seas of Tamriel event, for example – it offers something entirely new, a pirate experience of sorts with undersea exploration, swashbuckling, and naval combat reminiscent of Sea of Thieves. It's a delightful throwback to The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (except, you know, hopefully fun), with a modern twist that leaves me wanting more out of areas like The Ruby Sea in Final Fantasy 14.

Wait, I know you

The reveal that most has me in an Elder Scrolls Online-shaped chokehold now, however, is its new zone – because, yes, ZeniMax states developers "still want to do new zones" and "still want to do content" akin to past great releases despite the seasonal update system. It's a return to Skyrim, and I couldn't be more thrilled. "There's definitely something very iconic about the area we're going to that you'll notice," the studio teases

What is that? ZeniMax doesn't say. Is it Whiterun? "We're not going to answer." There's no telling just where in Skyrim we'll be going in this mysterious new zone, and that's a big reason I'm so excited. Thoughts of a potential Second Era Winterhold, Mage's College and all, have filled my mind for days now, and I can't get enough of speculating.

I'm enjoying myself in The Elder Scrolls Online, and there's more to look forward to than only a zone this time around. This is different because it's not just Skryim – it's the Night Market, it's the Solo Dungeons, it's The Crimson Veldt, it's the High Seas of Tamriel event, and it's the mystery of what the new zone might harbor amid all of this other content. I might return to Eorzea someday, but for now, I'm happy being the Vestige again.

If you're excited for future Bethesda Game Studios gems, here's everything we know as of now about The Elder Scrolls 6 – whenever it may come.

The Elder Scrolls Online is going to look a whole lot different soon, with the 2026 roadmap finally coming to fruition – smaller updates, the new seasonal model, and all – and between an unexplored region of Skyrim coming and Sea of Thieves vibes underway, I can't wait.

It's no secret that The Elder Scrolls Online is about to look a whole lot different – but it's not just because of animation changes to werewolves or a revamped Glenumbra.

We've already had a taste of what's to come with the recent Update 49, a massive patch that saw the (now admittedly a bit broken in PvP) Dragonknight class reworked, as tweaks for all roles are underway, much to my not-subclassing delight.

There's plenty more in the works, too, though. After attending an early preview of the 2026 Seasons Direct, I'm thrilled to report that the MMO – an MMO that's arguably held a bit of a shaky reputation in Elder Scrolls fans' hearts since its 2014 release – is taking years of player feedback into account in Season Zero, Season One, and beyond.

With Season Zero, dubbed Dawn and Dusk, comes the first big limited-time Event Zone: The Night Market.

Set in the surreal Daedric realm of Fargrave, The Night Market will be available for seven weeks, starting April 29. Although we can group up with our friends to tackle its challenging PvE content, ZeniMax Online Studios tells us solo players shouldn't be afraid to join in on the fun – it's a worthy experience with rewards for all flavors of audiences.

These do, however, depend on our choice of one of three unique factions to team up with.

There's The Glittering Goad, The Ruckus, and The Thousand Eyes – each with their own respective cosmetics, titles, dyes, banners, and monster sets to score… so we'll need to pick wisely.

The way ZeniMax presents it, it also sounds like a sort of PvEvP situation in a way, as every faction will be competing (but not in a direct, Cyrodiil manner). I'm personally drawn to The Glittering Goad and its alluring horned dremora leader.

The Night Market is only the tip of the iceberg, though. We can look forward to Challenge Difficulty – an optional (ZeniMax stresses this bit) overland difficulty system as well come June 8, with four tiers to choose from and increased rewards to gain through them.

Season Zero boasts a plethora of changes geared toward PvP fans, too, like the new Veterancy PvP progression system. Lone players haven't been forgotten, either.

Solo Dungeons – a system that has me especially intrigued as a fan of the Trust feature in Final Fantasy 14 – are set to arrive and reimagine existing dungeons for folks preferring to take them on alone. No more queues and fake tanks? Sounds like a win to me.

For anyone who does enjoy group-based content, especially more hardcore experiences, there's the first base game trial in 12 years (yes, over a decade) to anticipate.

The Crimson Veldt, as ZeniMax is calling its new 12-player trial, is set in Hircine's Hunting Grounds – but it's shaking up the usual lush forest we'd expect with canyons and savannas.

Then, there's also the High Seas of Tamriel Event coming… because pirates never fall out of fashion. From undersea exploration and swashbuckling to naval combat reminiscent of Sea of Thieves, it's a throwback to The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (except, erm, good).

Finally, ZeniMax hints toward a brand-new zone. "We still want to do new zones, we still want to do content," after all – the team simply wants "to get away from" just "sticking to the same formula" it's used for over a decade now.

And, that brand-new zone… is located in what might just be the setting of Bethesda's most legendary game to date: Skyrim. "There's definitely something very iconic about the area we're going to that you'll notice."

What is that? ZeniMax doesn't say. Is it Whiterun? "We're not going to answer." There's no telling just where in Skyrim we'll be going come this mysterious new zone, but I'll be keeping my own fingers crossed for Winterhold. Until we find out, however, there's plenty of content to enjoy in Season Zero, One, and beyond.

The annual Anniversary Jubilee is right around the corner on April 2, with the Night Market following close behind.

If you're excited for future Bethesda Game Studios gems, here's everything we know as of now about The Elder Scrolls 6 – whenever it may come.

Just over six years from when the game became playable, The Elder Scrolls: Blades is closing for good. As a result, every reward in the free-to-play spinoff from Bethesda's RPG series has been heavily reduced in order to maximize people enjoying the game for the limited time it's still available.

Bethesda made the announcement through an in-game message. "The Elder Scrolls: Blades servers will permanently shut down on June 30, 2026," reads the post, screenshotted by The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages. "From now until June 30, 2026, all items in the store will be available for 1 Gem or 1 Sigil each. All players receive a free bundle of Gems and Sigils, so you can enjoy all content Blades has to offer."

It's made clear that on June 30, "servers will be shut down and the game will be inaccessible." The publisher concludes with gratitude to the Blades community. "Thank you for playing and we hope you have enjoyed your time in Blades," the message states.

Although I'm sure more than a few people reading this had forgotten about Blades, the project thrived early on. Coming out in May 2020, there was genuine excitement for a free, combat-focused slice of The Elder Scrolls you can play on your phone or the Switch. More linear than the mainline games, Blades was fun for a quickfire bit of sword-swinging as you pushed through various challenges and encounters.

I do recall getting bored of it eventually, then forgetting about it, and I daresay more than a few others felt the same, given this course of events. That said, the fact that the game will disappear is drastic and sad, and there's already a push within the community for an offline mode.

Sadly, it seems unlikely, as demands for such were already going unanswered, and Bethesda probably isn't keen on putting any more resource into this release whatsoever. But never say never. Until then, get involved while you can, if you're at all curious.

"Pretend we kept patching Oblivion. What would we have done if we kept supporting it?" – Todd Howard explains the "thought exercise" Bethesda went through for its remaster

Bethesda boss Todd Howard has explained the studio's approach to updates when it came to creating Oblivion Remastered.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Howard notes that remastering any of its titles is risky as "the chances of messing it up are way higher than not. So how do we do everything we can to make sure we're enhancing what Oblivion was for people who played it, and then reintroduce it." This led to the team taking a specific route when it came to the remaster, based on what the original game would look like now.

Howard explains that the approach revolved around "what are the modern things you want to do?" He recalls, "I did this thought exercise with the team. Pretend we kept patching Oblivion. What would we have done if we kept supporting it? And that's where you get a good list: We probably would have added sprinting, we probably would have adjusted the skill systems – because they are kind of punishing here. And that's where we sort of ended up, like 'this is what it's going to be.'"

However, Howard is aware that any changes for such a popular game – that players have been immersed in for what is approaching 20 years – will be heavily scrutinized, even if they end up being a net positive. He adds: "We felt really, really good about that, but you never know how the audience is going to react to it. It's also why we compressed the time from announcement to release."

So if you're expecting the rumored Fallout 3 Remaster to arrive in the near future, this will give you a better idea of the kinds of things Bethesda will be looking at when updating its 2008 RPG.

As Fallout 3 and New Vegas remake hopes and rumors persist, Bethesda's Todd Howard says he's actually "anti-remake" and prefers remasters like Oblivion's instead.

One of the great joys about playing last year's Oblivion Remastered was seeing and hearing all the mid-2000s Bethesda jank and voice-over mistakes still intact. It's a glitchy, messy game at times, and that's very distinctly part of the appeal. Todd Howard agrees, and leaving in these bugs and errors was a specific decision for the remaster.

"I think there's a lot of fuzzy judgment calls," he explains during a roundtable attended by GamesRadar+. "Like, which ones are players gonna go try to do - take that one where you can stand on things – fixing that is so complicated."

There are a couple of potential candidates for what he's referring to, but the most likely is the glitch where you suddenly become significantly taller in first-person. Figuring out how and why these happen can be laborious, and for a project like a remaster, teasing out a solution might not be worth it.

"So, you know what, it's fine. I love the VO line flub," he continues. "Stuff like that? Yeah, just leave it. It's fine. It's part of the game's character."

This one's more famous: Tandilwe, in the Temple of the One, contains a double line-reading where you can hear the performer go twice. "Wait a minute, let me do that one again," they exclaim, before going back over the dialogue.

It's hilarious, and still listenable in the remaster, just as it is in the 2006 version. I'd very much be in Howard's camp on this, that's something unique to Oblivion that should be preserved. It's an eccentricity and part of the overall charm.

Bugs are more case-by-case, depending on how they impact gameplay, but a side character's lines being slightly off? An accidental treasure, for fans to discover. Honestly, we'll have to see what emerges from The Elder Scrolls 6.

Todd Howard wanted Bethesda's original RPGs to be playable before worrying about remasters: "You can play Morrowind, you can play Fallout 3."