Many companies as of late have gotten into the habit of unveiling their games years before they release (Square Enix, anyone?), leaving frustrated fans sitting on the edge of their seats as they wait for any kind of news. If you happen to be someone who falls into that category, then you'll be happy to know that Bethesda has no intention of doing that with The Elder Scrolls VI.
In an interview, Bethesda's Vice President of Marketing and PR Pete Hines has announced that it will surprise fans with the reveal of The Elder Scrolls VI, just like how it did with Fallout 4 when the company revealed the game at E3 2015 and released it just a few months later in November.
"The motivation came from both sides," Hines said. "Anything we want to do from a PR-marketing perspective always has implications on the devs, right? Whether that's trying to capture video or trying to put together a demo: it's an additional ask above and beyond just working on the game."
Rather than stopping active development in order to produce a demo build or trailers to show off at various events, the team will focus exclusively on making the game.
Amusingly enough, despite Hines' proclamation, there already is some hype surrounding the game. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been out for five years now and fans thought it was time that Bethesda created a new entry in the series. As such, they pestered Hines about what the status of the game was. Unfortunately for Bethesda — as well as Elder Scrolls fans — Hines cracked under the pressure and revealed that Elder Scrolls VI was in development so he could get the fans off his back.
Of course, there wasn't much doubt that the game was in development, but there is nothing like a high-ranking member's word on the subject to settle the matter.
Unfortunately, with this announcement fans are now in a bit of a pickle: we already know the game is in development, but Bethesda will not reveal any information about the game until it's ready to hit shelves. What's worse, it has already been confirmed that the game is still quite a ways off.
"You're not going to be hearing first details on [Elder Scrolls VI] years before the game comes out, absolutely not," Hines says. "It's not the next thing we're doing, nor the thing we're even doing after that."
Despite that, however, this is certainly a better practice that what other companies have been doing as of late. For example, Square Enix revealed Kingdom Hearts III at E3 2013 and released trailers and gameplay videos since then, raising hype levels with each release. As such, it is easy to predict the backlash that occurred once a report revealed that the game wouldn't be hitting shelves until May 2017 at the earliest.
This is precisely what Bethesda is trying to avoid, and now it will have the pleasure of utterly flooring the audience during one of their E3 press conferences several years from now.
Until that moment comes, fans can get their Elder Scrolls fix with Skyrim: Special Edition that will launch for the PS4, Xbox One and PC in October. The game will feature enhanced graphics, frame rates — and most importantly for consoles — mod support, though PlayStation owners might have to wait a bit longer for the last one.
