There are plenty of things for players to do in the world of The Elders Scrolls. However, some quests and other such features were cut from the base games, specifically Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. The Elder Scrolls modding community has done everything it can to unearth this cut content and reimplement it into the game, but it’d still be nice to see these elements officially incorporated – perhaps even in the upcoming Elder Scrolls 6.
Despite taking place across multiple eras, the different Elder Scrolls titles have cut quests and locations that would easily fit in the context of the newest game. Some of them are pretty complete in terms of coding, which is why they’ve been reworked into mods, while others barely have any other information in the base game, leading to plenty of speculation in the community. Regardless, with a little tweaking and redesigning, these elements would easily find their place in Hammerfell or High Rock of The Elder Scrolls 6.
Cut Quests in The Elder Scrolls
- “Doran’s Family Troubles” (Oblivion) – This is an unfinished quest involving an NPC from Chorrol named Jirolin Doran. In it, Jirolin proves to be quite the eccentric as he believes he is part Ogre. He asks the player to make an offering to a group of Ogres so that he can establish contact with them. The quest then ends with Jirolin being kidnapped, with the player likely having to play the part of the rescuer. While it’s a fairly cut-and-dry quest, “Doran’s Family Troubles” sets the template for the more humorous quests that could show up in The Elder Scrolls 6.
- A questline involving the Elder Council (Oblivion) – According to an old interview with Todd Howard, Oblivion was supposed to have a questline where the player climbed the ranks of the Elder Council. It’s no small feat, as the group served as the governing body of the Tamrielic Empire at the time. Unfortunately, the team scrapped the idea early on as it distracted from Oblivion’s main quest. Earlier games like Daggerfall and Morrowind were considerably more focused on politics in terms of their main questlines, and they’re still beloved by players today. So, perhaps it’s worth implementing a complex questline that delves into local politics in The Elder Scrolls 6.
- “The Missing Apprentices” (Skyrim) – The College of Winterhold in Skyrim is admittedly quite bland in terms of questing opportunities, so it doesn’t help that an interesting side quest was scrapped before the game’s release. “The Missing Apprentices” would have had the player searching for students that disappeared due to their dangerous magical experiments. It could have even tied in to the unmarked Skyrim quest “Forgotten Names” to make things more interesting. There isn’t much in the game’s files about how the investigation would have taken place, but perhaps The Elder Scrolls 6 can try and implement a similar quest that encourages the player to ask around and look for clues about the missing people.
- “Collecting the Edda” (Skyrim) – Just like the College of Winterhold quests, the Bards College campaign in Skyrim is pretty lackluster. This quest would have potentially made it more interesting, however. After completing “Tending the Flames,” the player would be tasked with collecting pieces of the Poetic Edda, which is a collection of myths and poetry by local bards. This would have made for an interesting follow-up to the Bards College questline as the player would meet fellow bards and potentially run into some trouble to make the quest more interesting. The Elder Scrolls 6 would do well to add more to faction questlines like this as it makes for a more engaging game world.
- A more expansive Civil War questline (Skyrim) – This is the piece of cut content that most Skyrim players are familiar with. Originally, Bethesda had planned to create a more complex Civil War questline, with around 12 missions for the player to complete, compared to the measly three missions in the final game. Some other notable features that didn’t make it to the game include a mission to recruit a giant, as well as there being a chance for the player’s faction to lose against the enemy army. These would have then affected the final outcome of the Civil War questline in Skyrim.
Other Cut Content in The Elder Scrolls
- More arenas (Oblivion) – The developer had originally planned to have an arena in every city of Oblivion. This meant that players needed to compete and win in each arena to become the Grand Champion. However, the implementation of this took up too much space on the game disk, so the team had to scrap the other arenas and the related dialogue, leaving only the Imperial City Arena. Thankfully, disk space isn’t that big of a problem anymore, so perhaps the developer can incorporate multiple arena settings across Hammerfell or High Rock in The Elder Scrolls 6, should these really be the game's settings.
- The Windhelm Pit (Skyrim) – Similar to the cut content on arenas in Oblivion, Skyrim was supposed to have an area known as The Pit near Windhelm in Skyrim. The quest surrounding this area triggered when the player was arrested as the guards then required them to fight for their life in the arena-style Pit. Based on the assets still present in the game, The Pit was a place where locals went for entertainment, so it’s very similar to the Imperial City Arena – except instead of fighting for valor, the player is fighting for their life. Both types of arenas are more than welcome in The Elder Scrolls 6.
- The Devourer (Morrowind) – The Devourer is a book that was never properly implemented in Morrowind, so it can’t be pulled up with console commands. Its model and texture are still in the game field though. The Devourer is supposedly based on H. P. Lovecraft’s the Necronomicon, so perhaps it would have been related to The Elder Scrolls’ Hermaeus Mora. Anything related to the esoteric Daedric Prince is sure to come with an interesting story, which is something The Elder Scrolls 6 can capitalize on.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is currently in development.