The Next Elder Scrolls Game: What Should We Expect?

Back in 2011, the gaming community was struck with a game so great that it changed the world of gaming as we know it. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was arguably one of the greatest games of the previous generation, and has lured tons of gamers into the RPG gaming community. Since then, we have seen three official DLCs and countless mods for the PC version that have kept the game alive for over two and a half years.

So when will the next sequel to the Elder Scrolls series be released? What will be some of the game's features? When and where will the game take place?

As for when the game will be released, the only way we can calculate that is by looking at the release dates of past games in the franchise. If you look at the release dates of the past 3 games, you will see that the time between releases is about 4-5 years, meaning that if this trend continues, we will not see the next installment until late 2015 at the earliest, although due to the lack of leaks and information about the up and coming game along with the very recent release of The Elder Scrolls Online, it can be best assumed that the game will not be released until late 2016 at the earliest.

The most intriguing factors of the next TES game is the game itself. What region of Nirn will the game be held? When exactly will the game take place, and if it takes place after the events of Skyrim, what are the writers going to do about that whole "civil war" thing? The truth is, we don't know, and with the game possibly so early in development we might not know for a while, but it is still interesting to wonder about the possibilities of Bethesda's next great "The Elder Scrolls" game.

I personally would like to see a game that is both graphically impressive, and with immersive gameplay. Cities that feel less empty would also be nice, and maybe they should make the combat less tedious. A physics engine revamp would be a great way to make the game less buggy too, but these are just ideas. This is Bethesda's opportunity to improve over a game that was already great, so let's hope for a game that gives us the best Elder Scrolls experience possible.

What features do you think should be included in "The Elder Scrolls VI"? Should it have some form of Co-Op or multiplayer? Should they make an enormous map?Leave your ideas in the comments below!

First of all, I think the next TES game will give us conclusion on the Thalmor reign so I would guess it'll take place about 100+ years later. As to where, there are still provinces yet unvisited like Summerset Isles, Valenwood, Elsweyr etc. The former 2 could be ideal to deal the final blow to the aldmeri dominion.

I'd like to see a world less empty. With next-gen hardware I think cities and roads swarming with people of all kinds can be more than possible following the Witcher 3's example(bye bye cities with 20 citizens max). Skyrim's world was big enough but the next game can be even bigger given that it's going to be filled with content appropriately.

And of course combat improvements and less bugs will be gladly welcomed. I'm looking forward to seeing what Todd Howard and the Beth team have in store for us. A 2016 release date is something I can deal with, I've had my fair share of Skyrim for the past 2-3 years and planning to get back to Oblivion as well.

More bugs with even less depth and content.

hope they improve the combat in the game, it gets very boring. Just click mouse over and over basically.

no bugs more realistic visuals no pepretive quests more story quests more exploration

@johnd13: I agree 100%. Also, the longer Bethesda waits the more knowledge the developers will have of the next gen consoles and the more power they can squeeze out of them, making for a more optimized game compared to a lot of these launch titles you see right now. My biggest hope is that they make the world more populous and not quite as empty as Skyrim (the cities are a prime example of that).

The same thing only 100 times larger.

except that trend is actually in the opposite direction. Oblivion is 22 sq miles and Skyrim is 14.5

Skyrim wasn't that great, especially the vanilla, pre-DLC version.

I want Obsidian to give the Elder Scrolls a New Vegas treatment. You know, make a great game with the IP.

Improved guilds, longer main quest and more trademark exploration, please

@Ish_basic

My point is they only difference will be Quantity.

More depth, stop dumping things down.

Another dumbed down hiking sim for casuals with bad gameplay/writing/rpg systems, but ppl will eat it up cause you can dress up your character and go anywhere you want in some shitty 3-d gameworld and the rest is UP TO YOU.

It will probably be buggy, as per usual with a Bethesda game. I just want it not dumbed down.

Well, I have a feeling that Obsidian is handling the next Fallout game (at least I hope), so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw The Elder Scrolls VI from Bethesda in 2016.

Hopefully making questing fun again. Wasn't one good quest in Skyrim. Guilds were also extremely dissapointing.

Agreed, Bethesda has disappointed me in past... Was really upset with how weak stealing has been in oblivion-skyrim.. Hopefully they make being a sneak abit more interesting next game.

Damn ! I didn't know people felt this way about Bethesda. Atleast not this much.

despite its many faults the tes games are easily my favorites.

however, what should we expect? due to the loud and intense uproar i expect beth to make a concerted effort to un-dumb;) the direction of the series. therefore, i see many smart gameplay additions.

More EPIC dragon fights maybe ??

@udubdawgz1: Hopefully some more immersive RPG elements will be added to the game. The characters in Skyrim were quite bland at times.

I'm not really sure what to expect but Skyrim was pretty damn awesome so whatever it is I'm certainly looking forward to it.

@roastedzombies: absolutely. as i'm on the 360 i have a list of immersive rules/restrictions i use. would love to see attributes return, less generic perks, more character customization, better scale and density (time and environment) and a world that evolves around the character.

personally, i think many of the immersive mods should, with the hardware and specs available, be standard on tes games. new vegas' "hardcore" is hardly hardcore.

and, most importantly, i should NOT have to implement many of my rules/restrictions. they should be in-game options.

I think a combination of ether elsewhere and vallenwood or elsewhere and Black marsh.And if it is elsewhere they should incorporate some more of the 20+ Breeds of Khajiit like the ones that look similar to Bosmer (Ohmes).

Bigger World and more crap inside of it. Other than that, same old same old.

Fallout 4 won't come out until 2016 at the earliest, which means the next TES game won't be released until 2020. I'm not exaggerating or kidding...

@bussinrounds said:

More EPIC dragon fights maybe ??

why do you hate the game so much? i can see that you have never played skyrim before
because dragons are gone,even if some of them still lives,they will not be the enmey
anyway,i want the story to continue right from skyrim's ending(or maybe 10-20 years after the game) and will be focused on the problems in nirn(so many problems) and the empire's crumble,other than that there's so many things they could improve or tweak so just make a better creation kit and the modders will take care of any problems left in the game.

@natsm: Probably just another one of those JRPG elitist fanboys. And having the game take place not too long after would be cool.

Judging from the way the series is trending...

-There will be only four skills: weapons, magic, stealth, and crafting.

- There won't be any other stats. They're too confusing for the current Elder Scrolld audience.

- You'll start the game as both the archmage and the leader of the thieves guild, but will still need to complete three quests to become the emperor.

- They'll wheel in Christopher Lee to voice half of the main cast.

- Your journal will not only provide quest markers, but it will also provide a detailed step-by-step visual walkthrough of how to complete every quest.

- The map will be smaller, more beautiful, with less to do.

-Mage's staves will now be the main form of weaponry. They'll require ammunition to use (thus completing the series' transition into the FPS genre).

Have I missed anything? I can't make predictions about the story or AI, because there won't be any.

+1

Made an account just to upvote. However, I'd gladly pay 100 quid for a morrowind-style game in a new setting. I truly hate being born into a game with supernatural powers. I'll never forget the first time I sat foot on Seyda Neen, with no directions and no purpose, except a note to Cassius which I could easily choose to ignore.

Daggerfall was hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Cyrodiil Oblivion was as boring and uninspired as you could get, Skyrim at least has some semblance of good design and interesting locations, and doesn't seem to be copy pasted all over. Plus the towns actually seem slightly more logical, not Oblivion's cities that had 5-10 houses supported by a massive cathedral that was larger than everything else in the town combined and defended by a ginormous castle and city walls.

Bigger isn't always better, in The Elder Scroll's case, it's generally a very bad thing, considering Morrowind and Skyrim are seen as two of the best entries in the series, even though they are technically the smallest.

is it too much to ask for a little wit and personality in the world? everyone's so bland and humourless. one of the biggest problems i have with bethesda games is how unmemorable the majority of people you meet in the game are

exactly

@Macutchi: I actually agree with that. The AI is quite bland and unemotional in Skyrim. It really makes the game feel dryer than it should be. The same goes for the other ES games to be honest. The thing is, we all know that Bethesda has the ability to make games with characters containing strong and/or convincing personalities that are capable of adding immersion and making the gamer feel he's in the game, just look at dishonored. I haven't felt so immersed in a game in a while when I played that game, although that's just my opinion.

I expect it will be much the same as Skyrim but with better graphics.

Nothing you do will mean anything beyond random guard comments and the storyline will be fixed on rails.

oh, i agree. It's annoying to me how with every new open world game these days one of the first things the dev comes out and says is how much bigger it is than the last game. And I can't help but think "oh great, more empty space." Bethesda has figured it out that density matters more than area. Maybe someday other open world devs will, but I doubt it, since they consider world size such a huge selling point.

bethesda just needs to learn to make its cities more realistic. A good gritty city is better and offers more gameplay option than miles of wilderness. Dishonored should have taught them that.

didn't one just come out oO

Maybe more race friendly dialog. And over time perks you get when you level up or complete certain missions or factions.

As a person who loves to play sidequests and etc. I would love to have smithing more challenging somewhat like alchemy..... I think if the TES VI can make me waste time doing something that I probably don't need to finish the game I will be happy.....

As a person who loves to play sidequests and etc. I would love to have smithing more challenging somewhat like alchemy..... I think if the TES VI can make me waste time doing something that I probably don't need to finish the game I will be happy.....

@pratya: I kinda hope for a new armor system. The armor cap in Skyrim made light armor OP at times.

bigger better and no buggy this time i cant wait

Postpone the game until 2020 at the soonest giving Bethesda time to ensure the quality of the game is at optimal capacity; i.e. AI density, quest line content, graphics, physics, and most importantly overall immersive quality. Cannot begin to even explain how many times I have been disappointed by the lackluster animations and behaviorisms in Skyrim.

If need be focus on a map no larger than Skyrim, but more populace density and and immersive qualities.

Perhaps some of the most important aspects to ensure in the game: varying seasonal climates (PLEASE!), ability to jump while sprinting, seamless mobility/interactive interface, and of course greater effort on the guilds quest lines.

On a side note, the ME series is by far one of my all rime favorite game series (second only to TES of course), Even though it is highly unlikely it would be AMAZING if Bethesda teamed up with Bioware to create the next installment of TES games. The size and lore of Skyrim mixed in with the story line quality and character centered storyline of Mass Effect 2, but not 3.

If i happened to miss anything please repost.

Note: ignore the rabble about dragon mounts, had enough dragons nosedive into a mountain in Skyrim and crash the game already.

Please no. I hope I don't have to wait that long for a new elder scrolls! Anyways I would like to see a more satisfying combat system like dark souls. The one in skyrim is too simplistic.

Pretty soon there wont be much of a game. They'll just release the modding tools because that is pretty much what sells the series now anyway.

@xXG3n3s1sXx: If they wait until 2020, then they better have a map at least as big as Skyrim and MUCH better RP elements. Also, the "Cities" are unrealistically small. I'm not necessarily saying they should be to scale, but at least make the game SEEM more lifelike. I know a lot of gamers think that if there is too many NPCs, the developers will get lazy and not give them personalities, but if they have until 2020, then there should be no excuse. Also, doesn't Skyrim have a varying climate? Sure, it isn't obvious, but you can tell that in the winter months it's snowier and such.

I also think that the combat should be more along the lines of dishonored than that of Dark Souls. Dishonored had awesome gibbing and blood (yea I'm kind of a gore freak, it somehow makes killing enemies so much more immersive), and Dark Souls is a completely different game (not a bad game, it just has a way different play style).

Agreed, although exaggerated. While I hate being that "new sequals to old games are bad and dumbed down" guy, TES series truly has dumbed down since Morrowind. No race stats in the next elder scrolls game is definite and so are most other things. Although, I can say on Skyrim's behlaf that I disagree with the people saying that "brown and grey and white" world of Skyrim is horrible and generic. That's just how Skyrim is. It's snowy with some forest parts.

What I personally want to see in the next game is more interaction with the guilds once you've become guild master. As it stands, you spend much time and effort to become a guild master then have no reason to visit or have involvement with the guild again.

Personally, you should get "messengers" requesting or reminding you to visit for guild management quests or for helping fellow guild members with some problems of sorts. Being able to call upon the guild for help would be nice too. This was only possible in one guild of Skyrim. But you don't always need the help of a werewolf warrior. What if the quest requires some finesse? I had the problem of bringing followers on a "stealth" mission in which they'd always get detected. I solved this with some enchanted items, but still.

Hopefully you get the point. More content for guilds past the "I'm the almighty guild master" point, in addition to/other than repeated quests that are pointless and a special trinket that you may never use.

if they made it where the world was changed around what you actually did not just which army won or who occupies where but everything like the landscape or the general population or the people you recieve quests from idk what else i havent thought about it for too long all i know is the later it comes out the better also i would like a lil more complexity like i saw in morrowind

fuckin spell creator or we riot

I expect bigger world, better graphics, etc. They had that procedurally generated questing system in Skyrim. I think they will expand on procedurally generating lots of things and even gameplay systems like crafting items/potions and spells so that the player feels more and more like they can do anything. I think it'd be cool if there was like a physics and particle system that basically broke down elemental attacks into how they move, how they look, how they affect the environment, and how they affect enemies. If they could have a system that took basically used those for things as building blocks so that say, if you take everything that for fire then it looks and acts like fire but you could say, have a lightning element attack with the physics of water so it's like a lightning rivers that flows over things, and give it give it the status effects of of something else. That would be hard to implement, but once created the possibilities are endless and a player could spend hundreds of hours just messing around with stuff for spells or in the enchantment system trying to make the perfect weapon with the perfect combination of these blocks.

I think the entire game might be built around some type of procedural system where you can play "forever" where new dungeons or lands keep appearing, you can keep getting stronger and stronger forever, the loot you get can get stronger and stronger forever, and you can goto places where the enemies will get stronger and stronger forever if you like. If the quest system gets better at creating more interesting and involved quests, it could be a lot of fun to go out and basically never stop improving your character and always being able to find something that's a challenge and a test of your abilities.

I would like a higher emphasis on storytelling. They already have quality voice acting but I hate a character can be whispering or screaming but their animations are pretty much identical. It'd be nice if they put some time and money into that but I doubt they will. The tech for that type of stuff has been around since the PS1 days so it's not like new hardware will finally allow them to do it. It seems like it's something they just aren't interested in.