Still staring at this image from 2018… The biggest Elder Scrolls news of the year just dropped: Bethesda Game Studios and remaster pros Virtuos remastered Oblivion, the fourth game in the action RPG series, and it’s out now. Long anticipated — and regularly leaked — the upgraded version of Elder Scrolls 4 arrived to PC, Xbox Game Pass, and PS5 with minimal fanfare, but all the hype.  And with it came a burning question: What’s up with Elder Scrolls 6? It’s been 19 years since the original release of Oblivion. It’s been 14 years since the fifth sequel, Skyrim. It’s been 11 years since the launch of Elder Scrolls Online. And it’s been nearly seven years since Bethesda took to E3 (RIP) and first announced that it was developing Elder Scrolls 6. It’s been a long time since anyone set foot in a new patch of the fantasy continent of Tamriel. Updates have been few and far between, with the rumor mill grinding in the void of Todd Howard saying anything meaningful (but he understands fans’ pain). But here’s what we do know about Bethesda’s plans for Elder Scrolls 6. Elder Scrolls 6 doesn’t have a release date, but the timeline isn’t totally nebulous  Bethesda has yet to officially date the in-development Elder Scrolls 6 on the calendar. Howard has said that the prioritization of Starfield ultimately led to a delay in the Elder Scrolls 6, though work continued throughout that game’s development and launch. Thanks to documents released during the FTC’s legal battle against the Microsoft-Activision merger, we do know that, as of two years ago, the game was on track for 2026 at the very earliest.  The good news is that Elder Scrolls 6 is no longer the most longterm, ways-out project Bethesda has in the pipeline. According to Howard during press rounds for Starfield, the plan is to release Elder Scrolls 6 before a Fallout 5, which is also in the works (though technically unannounced).  It’s “hard to imagine” Elder Scrolls 6 as an Xbox exclusive, says Howard Even five years ago, before Microsoft evolved into a massive publisher with reach beyond the core Xbox console and Game Pass platform, Todd Howard could not imagine Elder Scrolls 6 as an Xbox exclusive. When Microsoft acquired Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media way back in 2020, the executive was clearly forecasting the multi-platform that has become key to Microsoft’s strategy. There have been no formal announcements about which platforms Elder Scrolls 6 will hit — a new generation of consoles seems likely, at this point — but based on the recent release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PC, Xbox, and PS5, one expects Bethesda to make sure everyone is playing the dang thing when the time comes. How far along is Elder Scrolls 6? To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Elder Scrolls in March 2024, Bethesda posted a loving message to fans that tucked in a minor update on Elder Scrolls 6, confirming it was still in the works: “Even now, returning to Tamriel and playing early builds has us filled with the same joy, excitement, and promise of adventure.” In a recent interview, former Bethesda animator Jeremy Bryant told YouTuber Kiwi Talkz (via GamesRadar) that the development time might be a result of Howard controlling the size of the Elder Scrolls team and growing the company through slower-drip acquisition. Because of the strategy and time allowed, Bryant didn’t expect the studio to grow much just because a giant open-world tentpole was on the horizon. “Todd has the vision for the game that he wants to make and he knows he needs X number of people to do it,” Bryant said. A leading theory: Elder Scrolls 6 takes place in High Rock While there are few specifics on the status of the game, it’s even less clear what to expect from the Elder Scrolls franchise in terms of story. But a few clues dropped over the years suggest the drama will unfold in Tamriel’s northern region. The original teaser for The Elder Scrolls 6 featured ocean, mountains, and forests, leading our resident Skyrim-brained sleuths to deduce that the setting was along the North Kambria plateau. The theory gained more traction after, of all things, a Starfield teaser trailer. What at first glance appeared to be a scratch inside a Constellation dashboard looked, in close-up, to be an island — one that looked awfully like Elder Scrolls’ canon cartography. Will Elder Scrolls 6 head to High Rock? One day we’ll know more. Just not right now.