The Elder Scrolls 6's Early Announcement Might Be a…

Summary

The announcement of The Elder Scrolls 6 along with Starfield may have been a regret for Bethesda, but it provides the studio with plenty of time to learn from Starfield's mixed reception and make TES6 a worthy follow-up.
Bethesda's winning formula for open-world RPGs needs refinement if The Elder Scrolls 6 wants to be a proper follow-up to Skyrim, with the studio needing to iterate on their design philosophy and make improvements.
Starfield's ambitious size and scope came at the cost of the curated open-world sandbox experience that players expected, showing that Bethesda needs to learn from Starfield and refine its design philosophy.

It might be hard to believe (or not, considering the typical development window of a Bethesda game), but it's been just over 5 years since the initial reveal and announcement of The Elder Scrolls 6. Interestingly, the announcement of The Elder Scrolls 6 came in conjunction with the reveal and announcement of Starfield, and while Starfield's release has come and gone, fans don't have much info to go on regarding the next installment in Bethesda's open-world fantasy RPG saga. Looking back on the twin announcements of these games, Bethesda head Todd Howard is on record regretting announcing TES6 when the company did, but it turns out that this announcement may have a silver lining.

Despite strong commercial success and a respectable critical reception, Starfield continues to be a somewhat polarizing game. One of the primary concerns voiced by players who have a less-than-favorable impression of the title is that it relies too heavily on the design philosophy of the older Bethesda titles, erring on the side of caution in some ways while also buckling under the weight of its own ambition in others. By the time The Elder Scrolls 6 releases, it will have been more than 15 years since Skyrim, and its early reveal means Bethesda has plenty of time to learn from Starfield's mixed reception to make it a worthy follow-up to one of the greatest RPGs ever made.

Similar to how Ubisoft's open-world formula has been applied to nearly every one of the franchises under the company's umbrella, it's safe to say that Bethesda Game Studios has a formula that the developer has been leaning heavily on since the release of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. For its time, Morrowind was an incredibly ambitious game that completely redefined what players expected out of a Western RPG, much in the same way that the original Baldur's Gate had done years prior. Since Morrowind, Bethesda has become one of the premier studios crafting open-world RPG experiences.

And while the affordances of modern PCs and consoles have made that trademark "Bethesda RPG" experience much more visually and technically impressive, the same core concepts still remain at the heart of each of the studios' games. At the time of its release, Skyrim was practically a revelation and still stands as one of the best RPGs ever made, but there's merit to the idea that, if it was released today, it might not have the same impact on the industry. Simply put, Bethesda's winning formula is in need of some refinement if The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be a proper follow-up to Skyrim.

Starfield is nothing if not ambitious, providing players with the largest open-world space that Bethesda has crafted to-date. However, that size and scope came at the cost of the carefully curated open-world sandbox that many players expected after playing Skyrim and Fallout 3 and 4. Procedural generation has always been a part of Bethesda's RPGs, but none have utilized it quite as prominently or in the same way as Starfield. If there's one thing that the mixed player reception to the game proves, it's that The Elder Scrolls 6 needs to learn from Starfield and iterate on a decades-old design philosophy.

This iteration and refinement of the Bethesda formula is no easy task, as there's a fine line to walk between innovation and improvement and attempting something too ambitious. Ultimately, The Elder Scrolls 6 stands to benefit from the complaints players have about Starfield, potentially seeing Bethesda adopt a "back-to-basics" approach that has the studio playing to its strengths. Fans likely have several years before The Elder Scrolls 6 releases, and that extra time in the oven between announcement and launch may just be its saving grace.

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