Key Takeaways
- Skyrim is now 13 years old and remains incredibly popular.
- While the first four Elder Scrolls games took 12 years to develop, The Elder Scrolls 6 will arrive after a 15-year wait.
- At least we still have Skyrim to play.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one of the most legendary RPGs ever, is now 13 years old. While Morrowind and Oblivion certainly made Bethesda a force to be reckoned with in the RPG space, Skyrim’s 60 million sales catapulted the series into the mainstream. It’s hard to overstate the legacy of Skyrim, which became a benchmark against which all RPGs were measured for many years.
13 years later, Skyrim remains incredibly popular. In fact, on Steam alone, Skyrim has triple the number of average players as Starfield, a testament to the replayability (and vibrant modding community) of Skyrim. In many ways, wandering the valleys and mountainsides of Tamriel’s northernmost province is timeless. As the adage goes, every time you play Skyrim, you discover something new.
The Long Wait
Skyrim was released 5 years after Oblivion, with development on the title ramping up following the release of Fallout 3 in 2008. Unfortunately, Skyrim will be at least a decade and a half old before the next instalment in the series is released. In 2018, Bethesda released a teaser for The Elder Scrolls 6 saying the game was in “pre-production.” We’ve been told not to expect the game before 2026, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that date pushed out even more.
The Elder Scrolls 6 will have spent almost a decade in development by the time it reaches digital storefronts. In contrast, Bethesda developed Arena, Daggerfall, Redguard, Battlespire and Oblivion in 12 years. Yes, the resources and time required to create triple-A games have grown exponentially, but still, the comparison is staggering. It also has the added effect of adding more anticipation to The Elder Scrolls 6, which is going to be shouldering a 15+ year pay-off.
The reasons for this are numerous. In addition to games taking longer to make than they used to, The Elder Scrolls 6 hasn’t been in full production for very long. Since Skyrim, Bethesda has shipped Fallout 4 and Starfield. The studio also created a new engine for Starfield, the Creation Engine 2, a developmentally-intensive process. Additionally, the core team at Bethesda also doesn’t enjoy outsourcing its IPs or dividing its teams, another reason for a relatively slow turnover.
We can take solace in the fact that, while we wait, we still have Skyrim. It’s a game that has fostered immeasurable joy in countless players over the years and has cultivated a deep fear of giant spiders in yours truly.
One of the all-time greats, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim redefined the concept of the Western RPG. With countless awards under its belt and releases on almost every platform imaginable, you’ll find yourself engrossed in a colossal open world in your role as the Dragonborn. You must face your destiny and save the land from a formidable foe.