You can never say that Elder Scrolls games are low on content. However, Todd Howard, the head of Bethesda Game Studios, is apparently going to take this even further with Elder Scrolls 6. In an interview with British magazine GQ, Howard claimed that he wants to make the game the “ultimate fantasy-world simulator”, but what exactly does that involve?
There are many things that a player can do in Elder Scrolls games besides adventuring; in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, players could engage in blacksmithing, alchemy, enchanting, cooking, mining, smelting, woodcutting, and tanning leather. Other crafting skills in Elder Scrolls games, like the MMO Elder Scrolls Online, added making clothing and jewelry to the mix.
Various open-world games like the Elder Scrolls games all have crafting mechanics that allow players to craft new gear with materials gathered in the wild, obtained by things like hunting, fishing, mining, or gathering plants. Exactly how Howard plans to expand on Elder Scrolls 6’s world to make it an “ultimate” simulator, however, remains to be seen.
DLC in Skyrim allowed players to actually build and decorate houses in some pre-determined areas, so such a thing being allowed in Elder Scrolls 6 from the start could definitely help to personalize a player’s experience more. We can likely also expect more crafting as well, and maybe even additional ones like making clothing and jewelry, or even farming.
Elder Scrolls 6 may even go the Fallout 4 route and allow players to found various settlements, building houses with resources gathered in the wild and recruiting NPCs to live in those settlements to provide players with a base to go on adventures from.
Considering that we’ve heard nothing about Elder Scrolls 6 since it was announced five years ago back at E3 2018, hopefully once Starfield comes out we’ll start getting at least some information about it. Until then, all we can do is wait and watch Bethesda.
