The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel—All the key details about Bethesda's return to Tamriel

Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel has now passed eight years since Bethesda's first announcement and, spoiler alert, even after a name and location reveal there aren't a lot of actual confirmed details to work with.

Of course, the question we all want to know most is: When can we play it? (it's not soon.) If you're desperate for an Elder Scrolls 6 experience—and you consider yourself, let's say, "quality ambivalent"—there are always self-proclaimed Elder Scrolls 6 mods out there to entertain the delusion until we have more concrete information.

Here's everything we know about The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel.

Is there an Elder Scrolls 6 release date?

Long story short—no. Recent comments from Todd Howard still paint TES6 as being "a long ways off," even if "it’s progressing really well." We thought that "long ways off" might get a little shorter, as Microsoft is reportedly looking to speed up development of future key games, such as Elder Scrolls, with more spending and allocated resources. However, Bethesda has been affected by Xbox layoffs, and Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier claimed in a Q&A that TES6 is at least two years off.

Back to Todd, he also said that he'd like to shadow drop TES6 when it's ready, à la Oblivion Remastered, but somehow we don't think the decision-makers at Microsoft would want to pass up the opportunity to market the hell out of one of the biggest upcoming video game releases. But hey, if someone could make this a reality, it'd be Todd Howard.

Howard has also confirmed that "The Elder Scrolls 6 is the everyday thing" that Bethesda's devs are working on right now, but that while the majority of the studio is on TES6, that "We always overlap. So, we’re very used to overlapping development. And we have long pre-productions on things so that we feel good about them. And it’s a process. We all wish it went a little bit faster—or a lot faster—but it’s a process that we want to get right."

Elder Scrolls 6 trailers

The Elder Scrolls VI – Official Announcement Teaser - YouTube

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Todd Howard introduced The Elder Scrolls 6 teaser trailer at E3 in 2018. Study it as closely as you dare. Really drink it in. Because this first glimpse was the only ne we got for eight years.

The Elder Scrolls VI: Official Name Reveal - YouTube

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The year is now 2026 and Bethesda has once again acknowledged The Elder Scrolls 6 with a new trailer. Can we call this a trailer? A teaser? It has a bejeweled scroll in the sand, a name, an implied location, and a date in the timeline, which is a lot of rumors and speculation put to rest, at least. Plenty more speculation will crop up in response though, don't you worry.

Elder Scrolls 6 gameplay info

What do we really know about The Elder Scrolls 6, other than assuming it'll be an RPG in keeping with past games in the series? Here's what Bethesda has said.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is being built with a new engine

Although Todd Howard previously told The Telegraph that the Elder Scrolls 6 would run on Creation Engine 2 (the same as Starfield) Howard recently updated us all in an interview with Kinda Funny Games that TES6 is actually being built with the new Creation Engine 3. That's after spending the last few years bringing Creation Engine 2 "up to" its third iteration. Howard also says that Creation Engine 3 is "going to power The Elder Scrolls 6 and beyond."

Bethesda expects The Elder Scrolls 6 to have just as long a lifetime as Skyrim

In a lengthy video interview from November of 2022, Todd Howard touched on a whole swath of topics: Starfield, video game creative philosophy, NPC romance—and, of course, Elder Scrolls 6. About its release: "I wish it was soon," Howard said, echoing earlier statements about Bethesda development times. "We want them out, too. And I wish they didn't take as long as they did, but they do. If I could go back in time, it would never have been my plan to wait as long as it's taken."

From there, Howard confirmed the studio's love for the world of Elder Scrolls, noting that he's spent more time developing in that space than anywhere else. Following the continued popularity of Skyrim, Howard said that work is being done to give the next Elder Scrolls game a similar lifespan. "You have to think about, okay, people are going to play the next Elder Scrolls game for a decade, two decades," Howard said. "And that does change the way you think about how you architect it, from the get-go."

The Elder Scrolls 6 is going back to the "classic style" of Bethesda game

In an interview with Kinda Funny Games, Todd Howard said that Starfield and Fallout 76 were " a little bit of a creative detour" from the classic style of Bethesda games like Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 3 and 4. "As we come back to The Elder Scrolls 6," Howard continued, "we're coming back to that kind of classic style that we've missed and that we know really, really well."

That's so weird that TES6 just so happens to resemble everybody's favorite Bethesda games, and has less in common with the studio's critical failures. Really though, what else was Howard expected to say? "Oh yeah, see those games you didn't like? Yeah, Elder Scrolls 6 is exactly like them. Enjoy." Guess I can give him a pass on this one.

The Elder Scrolls 6 will support mods

Todd Howard has also confirmed that yes, as expected, The Elder Scrolls 6 is being designed with a mind toward supporting mods, and those who create them.

Modding Bethesda RPGs is kind of a crucial cornerstone of PC gaming, so it's nice to get confirmation that it will be present in The Elder Scrolls 6. There's just something about a player community given the freedom to create some truly spectacular works that makes everything feel right in the world. There's even a finished game based on a Skyrim mod released called The Forgotten City.

Look forward to the continued legacy of Thomas the Tank Engine, Destroyer of Worlds.

'Skyrim Grandma' Shirley Curry will appear as an NPC

Fans petitioned Bethesda to include the beloved YouTuber in The Elder Scrolls 6, and now it's official: Shirley Curry, aka 'Skyrim Grandma' will appear in The Elder Scrolls 6 as an NPC.

"This means a lot to me," Curry said in the Elder Scrolls 25th anniversary video (at the 8:40 mark), "because I would be extremely happy to know that somebody else was playing with my character in a future Elder Scrolls game."

It probably won't have "weird stuff" like Morrowind

Although he's not working at Bethesda now, thanks to an interview with GamesRadar, we know Skyrim's co-lead and Morrowind's 'torchbearer', Kurt Kuhlmann, thinks that "Todd in particular gravitates not towards the weird stuff."

The 'weird stuff' he's referring to is Morrowind and what the province of Cyrodiil was described as in lore before Oblivion's release.

When asked about TES 6, Kuhlmann doesn't have too much more to say other than his personal take: "I don't know anything about what the game is. They're not allowed to tell me that...They're making something different than what I would have done, and so I don't know how I'm going to feel about that when I see it."

But he does doubt that we're gonna get something akin to Morrowind. "Especially now, you've got Microsoft, it's got to be one of their big things. I would be skeptical that they could do a game in Elsweyr or Black Marsh."

Elder Scrolls 6 story and setting details

The Elder Scrolls 6 is set in Hammerfell

With the official title Sentinel, we can say with 99.9% certainty that TES6 is set in Hammerfell, where Sentinel is the capital. Here's what we speculated about that location ahead of the official reveal:

Hammerfell

Thanks to a New Year's post by Bethesda at the very end of 2020, Hammerfell is another possible destination. No one is quite sure if the image posted is really a clue about Elder Scrolls 6, but the message about "mapping the future" sure does seem like it could be. Fans have speculated that the placement of candles on the image is a clue, most notably the one placed beneath the word "Hammerfell" in the undrawn area of the map West of Skyrim. Hammerfell is home to the Redguard people and its Alik'r Desert could line up with the rocky, arid environment shown in the original teaser trailer.

Adding to the speculation, the Starfield trailer from E3 2021 included a possible Elder Scrolls teaser. A very small scratch on the interior of a spaceship looks suspiciously like a drawing of a landmass. It also looks suspiciously like Tamriel's Illiac Bay, which sits between High Rock and Hammerfell. It's a very tiny detail that could be nothing, but it sure is a distinct shape. Speaking of Hammerfell, Bethesda already might have teased it as a location as well. Maybe things are coming together.

What will The Elder Scrolls 6 story be?

Short answer: we dunno. Longer answer: We can at least tell from the quote posted in the second teaser trailer that at least five years have passed since the events of Skyrim. The quote is dated 4E 206. The events of Skyrim took place in 4E 201.

Elder Scrolls 6 development details

The Elder Scrolls 6 has early playable builds

Posting to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda mentioned that "...returning to Tamriel and playing early builds has us filled with the same joy, excitement, and promise of adventure." While that doesn't feel like it's a whole lot closer to our next adventures, knowing that early builds are in a playable state is exciting enough to get us thinking about all the different stealth archers we'll play.

Plus, Xbox COO Matt Booty recently revealed in an interview with Variety that he's visited Bethesda, sat with Todd Howard, and seen Elder Scrolls in action. "It looks amazing, and it's coming along well," is all Booty would divulge about what he saw.

How far along is The Elder Scrolls 6's development?

"It's good to think of The Elder Scrolls 6 as still being in a design [phase]," Todd Howard said in a June 2021 interview. "But we're checking the tech: 'Is this going to handle the things we want to do in that game?' Every game will have some new suites of technology so Elder Scrolls 6 will have some additions on to Creation Engine 2 that that game is going to require."

Howard has previously mentioned work being done on Bethesda's Creation Engine as the required foundation for The Elder Scrolls 6. In 2016, Howard suggested that the technology needed to create Bethesda's vision for it just wasn't there yet at the time.

"I could sit here and explain the game to you, and you would say, 'That sounds like you don't even have the technology—how long is that going to take?'" he said. "And so it's something that's going to take a lot of time, what we have in mind for that game."

In another different interview, Todd Howard referred to a "major engine rewrite" being worked on for Starfield. TES6 will almost certainly benefit from the same new engine tech but there's clearly a lot of time being spent up front on Bethesda's next generation of RPGs.

Just before E3 2019, in an interview with IGN, Todd Howard cautioned that fans would need to be very patient for Elder Scrolls 6. By the time the next single-player adventure in Tamriel is released, it will be over a decade since Skyrim's first launch.

"The gap in between is going to be long. It already is. On one hand, I think it's good to miss things. I think that makes people come to it with really, really fresh eyes, and I think when they eventually—eventually—see the game and what we have in mind, they'll understand the gap more in terms of technology and what we want it to do."

Another factor prolonging TES6's debut is that Howard's crew doesn't want to be known as just the Elder Fallout Guys. "I think Todd and his team have earned the right, given the quality of this stuff, to be able to say, 'We know everybody really wants [TES6], but we as creative people want to be able to do stuff that we're really passionate about,'" Hines explained to GameSpot in 2017. "They wanted to be able to self-determine things they worked on next, whether it was existing stuff or whether it was new IP."

In an interview with MrMattyPlays (2024), Howard also stated "We're working hard on it. One day, we'll have it for everybody." Even though it's not exactly a development update, it's still reassuring to hear that development is underway.

When will we see more of The Elder Scrolls 6?

It could be years away—even though we know it's officially in development with Starfield done and out.

Oblivion, Fallout 4, and Skyrim were shown off in near-finished states with relatively small waits leading up to their launches (Oblivion was scheduled for a November 2005 release; it was delayed to March 2006), and Bethesda is probably priming TES6 for a similar sequence. Hines told us in 2016 that the next Elder Scrolls won't be teased along both as a mark of quality and as a balm for the development team to craft the game proper instead of diverting resources for vertical slice demos. That means the shot of some mountains could be the last we see of The Elder Scrolls 6 until much of the game is actually built.

If you're wondering why The Elder Scrolls 6 got announced at E3 when we knew Starfield was coming first, Bethesda's VP of marketing Pete Hines discussed this in an interview with FZ.se. "So it was just in conversations with him [and] folks on my team to say, look, why don't we consider putting out a little bit more of a roadmap for the studio that explains to folks, 'Here's what we're doing—yes, we're making this game called Starfield and here's what it is, and yes, we're going to make Elder Scrolls 6, but we have these other two games to develop and make first.' It's just so that folks have a better sense of where we are and where we're headed."

Will The Elder Scrolls 6 be an Xbox exclusive?

It's complicated. Not too long ago, the prospect of Bethesda games releasing on anything but a PC or an Xbox was basically shot down. Like former Xbox boss Phil Spencer's comments at Microsoft's 20th anniversary celebration for the original console: "in order to be on Xbox, I want us to be able to bring the full complete package of what we have. And that would be true when I think about Elder Scrolls 6."

But that was five years ago, and now Microsoft is releasing Bethesda games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages on PS5—the Oblivion remaster even came to PS5. So there's every possibility that TES 6 could pop up for sale on our PlayStation consoles too.

However, Xbox seems to have shifted its exclusive strategy once again, now that Phil Spencer has stepped down and Asha Sharma has taken his place as Xbox's CEO. "In order to be a platform, you must have exclusive content and services," Sharma said. "I think that we have to be very thoughtful about each title on how we want to think about it and learn from similar cases in the industry."

So, it's complicated. We'll have to wait for an official announcement, or slip of the tongue from a Microsoft exec, to properly answer the question of TES6's Xbox console exclusivity.

Elder Scrolls 6 might be Todd Howard's last hurrah

It's hard not to think of Todd Howard as a permanent fixture at Bethesda—the elder statesman of Elder Scrolls, if you will. Even Todd is subject to time, however, and Elder Scrolls games tend to eat up a lot of it—especially when you factor in post-release support. In an interview with IGN, Howard indicated that he's running the numbers on whether he'll have another Elder Scrolls in him once the next game is out the door. "I probably shouldn't say this. But if I do the math, I'm not getting any younger," Howard said. "How long do people play Elder Scrolls for? That may be the last one I do. I don't know."