Bethesda enlisted its intrepid fan-wiki editors 'to design a character for The Elder Scrolls 6'

Something you should know about me is: I would kill and die for the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP), a volunteer-maintained library of all things Elder Scrolls that's the absolute gold standard for fan wikis, so far as I'm concerned. Not for nothing were people excited when the Indie Fallout Wiki teamed up with UESP. Hell, we've even written our own paeans to it.

Its work hasn't gone unnoticed. According to a recent post on social media, the UESP editors' good deeds have been acknowledged by Bethesda itself, who called a gaggle of its editors into the office. To do what, you ask? Why, to design a character for The Elder Scrolls 6, of course! That's per the UESP itself, posting yesterday on social media.

"We just finished up a meeting with Bethesda where we got to design a character for The Elder Scrolls 6", said the UESP's official social media accounts. "Honestly, a lot of us went into the meeting pretty nervous and even reserved, but now we're all extremely excited for what's in store." One leading UESP-er posted that they'd even gotten a tete-a-tete with Todd Howard himself.

Which is great, to be honest. Lord knows I've got my criticisms about the direction Bethesda's taken over the last decade and change, but credit where it's due: the studio's been good to its community in the past few years, whether it's inviting the UESP guys in to make a TES6 character or doling out free Oblivion Remastered keys to the Skyblivion folks. Bethesda clearly knows its community kind of is its games, to a large extent, and it usually acts appropriately.

But here are the reasons this meeting of the minds excites me specifically. One: suddenly people are talking about The Elder Scrolls 6 like it's an actual videogame that might exist some day and not a phantasm on the horizon. It's good to slowly see the game gather substance, though don't get me wrong, I still don't anticipate playing it for years and years.

Two: by their very nature, UESP editors are lore nerds. They know their CHIM, their godhead, their dreamsleeve, their C0DA and what-have-you. To hear they went from "reserved" to "pretty excited for what's in store" is promising to me, a guy who's still upset Bethesda backgrounded all TES' cool lore stuff from Oblivion onwards.

Of course, it's also probably what I'd say, graciously, if a big company invited me over for sweetrolls, so I'm not gonna act like we're getting Morrowind 2, here. The signs are good, though! And with Starfield still a disappointing reflection in the rearview mirror, I'll take some good signs and be glad of it.

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