It sounds like The Elder Scrolls VI is still a very long way off

With the announcement of Starfield's release date at E3 2021, there's no doubt some Bethesda fans out there who are now hoping that we'll start to hear more about The Elder Scrolls VI. The highly-anticipated Elder Scrolls entry was first revealed back in 2018, and ever since then, we haven't received any new details about the game itself. Bethesda, however, has said in the past that The Elder Scrolls VI will be coming after Starfield, so now that Starfield is on the horizon, maybe some new information about The The Elder Scrolls VI is on the way as well?

It's probably best not to get your hopes up on that front because it sounds like The Elder Scrolls VI – and any real news about it – is still a long way off. Bethesda's Todd Howard confirmed as much in a recent interview with The Telegraph, saying that most of the company's focus is obviously on Starfield at this point.

"It's good to think of The Elder Scrolls VI as still being in a design [phase]... but we're checking the tech: 'Is this going to handle the things we want to do in that game?'" Howard said. "Every game will have new suites of technology so Elder Scrolls VI will have some additions on to Creation Engine 2 that that game is going to require."

The good news is that while The Elder Scrolls VI is still in the early stages of development, it'll use Creation Engine 2 alongside Starfield. That means work on the engine is at least mostly complete, save for the additions Bethesda makes specifically for The Elder Scrolls VI.

That is indeed encouraging, but it sounds like we're still years off from The Elder Scrolls VI. Considering that Starfield isn't launching for another 17 months – Bethesda announced a release date of November 11th, 2022 for Starfield at E3 earlier this month – then we probably won't see The Elder Scrolls VI launch until 2024 or 2025. We'll see if the timeline improves any after Starfield launches, but Elder Scrolls fans probably want to settle in for an even longer wait regardless.