Don't expect many Elder Scrolls 6 details until "six months before release," says former Skyrim designer

The Elder Scrolls 6 might have been announced five years ago, but a former designer at Bethesda doesn't think we'll learn much about it until shortly before release.

We all know that The Elder Scrolls 6 is a ways out, even if we don't exactly know when that is just yet. After all, supposedly proper development on the sequel that's been over a decade in the waiting only just started in August. So it isn't exactly surprising to hear that it'll probably be a while until we hear anything concrete. According to Bruce Nesmith, who was formerly a lead designer at Bethesda having worked on the seminal Skyrim, we're not likely to hear anything concrete about the game until about six months before it releases (via MinnMax).

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"Todd's opinion, which I share by the way is that the video game industry has short memories," Nesmith said, regarding when we can expect to see the game. "Those companies that start touting their games years ahead of time - actually, you know, they screw themselves. The best time to start talking about it is six months before release. So only the fact that everybody was - you know, the pitchforks and torches were out, that was what got Todd to say 'yes, we are going to do Elder Scroll 6 - I promise you it's for real, it'll happen!'

"But I'm betting you won't hear much in the way of details until a good six months before release, which is the way it should be - I think that's the best approach and he's proven that works really well, at least for Bethesda."

Six months seems like a pretty accurate timeline for Bethesda. After all, we didn't really get a particularly full look at Starfield until the game's big showcase back in June. Ironically enough, Starfield was announced the same year as The Elder Scrolls 6 too, in 2018. While that is a good few years ago now, considering that same press conference is when they announced the Amazon Alexa version of Skyrim, a confirmation of a sequel felt long overdue.

If you're interested in hearing more of Nesmith's thoughts on what The Elder Scrolls 6 will be like, the full interview is worth a watch, as he's pretty confident the sequel will see the return of Skyrim's "you do it to get better at it" levelling system, and "traces" of its magic system.