As the wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 continues, some fans believe developer Bethesda teased the release year in the Skyrim live-action trailer.
Earlier this week, Bethesda threw shade at Skyrim on Nintendo Switch 2 and in the process released a trailer for the live-action comedy in which evil Santa turned to two of his elves for support.
The trailer below shows one of the elves raising their speech level to 27 after suggesting they run Skyrim on Switch 2, with their overall character progression trending towards 20. Why 20 and 27? Some fans are now saying that because The Elder Scrolls 6 will be released in 2027.
“This honestly might be the best evidence we have for a release date,” one fan said. “These are very specific numbers and I don’t think they would use them randomly.” “My God, we are so desperate,” another replied.
However, these are oddly specific numbers, and you’d think Bethesda knew what they were doing when they chose them instead of rolling dice and coming up with random numbers. We’re talking about The Elder Scrolls 6 – it’s one of the most anticipated video games currently in development. Fans want – need! – to know when it would come out, so something like this always confused them.
But is 2027 a likely launch year? Bethesda CEO Todd Howard said last month Elder Scrolls 6 won’t be released for a while, even though it was announced over seven years ago. In an interview with GQ Magazine to celebrate the release of Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, Howard said that The Elder Scrolls 6 is “still a long way away.” He added: “I urge patience. I don’t want fans to feel anxious.”
However, you can understand why patience may be tough for some fans. In January this year The announcement of Elder Scrolls 6 became as venerable as Skyrim’s predecessor when The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced. Skyrim was released on November 11, 2011 The Elder Scrolls 6 was revealed on June 10, 2018 — 2,403 days later. It’s been seven and a half years since the announcement, and it feels like we’re no closer to the game’s release.
Even when the six-year anniversary of The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced last June Todd Howard paused and said, “Oh, it’s been a while.” The Elder Scrolls 6 is at least in production, as confirmed by Bethesda entered “early development” in August 2023 and “early releases” were available in March 2024.
In a GQ article, Howard once again admitted that The Elder Scrolls 6 took too long to launch, but teased a shadow in the vein of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered – without confirming anything.
“I like to have a break between them where it’s not a plus-one sequel,” Howard said of remaking The Elder Scrolls games. “I think it’s also good for audiences to have a break – The Elder Scrolls took too long, let’s be clear. But we wanted to do something new with Starfield. We needed a creative reset.” Howard revealed that Bethesda is currently testing The Elder Scrolls 6.
“I just like to announce things and release them,” Howard continued. “My ideal version – and I’m not saying this will happen – is that it will take some time and one day the game will just appear.” Shadowdrop Oblivion Remastered was a “trial run,” Howard teased. “It went well.”
As for what’s going on at Bethesda right now, there are hundreds of people working on Fallout, Howard said, on Fallout 76 “and a few other things we’re doing, but The Elder Scrolls 6 is a daily occurrence.”
This was confirmed earlier this year The Elder Scrolls 6 will feature a character designed in memory of a much-missed fan following an extraordinary fundraising campaign that raised over $85,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Wesley is the news director at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
