Todd Howard Confirms The Elder Scrolls 6 Is Still in Development After Year-Long Silence

While my colleagues are popping champagne to celebrate today’s stream and surprise drop of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Remake, those with a forward-looking perspective might be pleased to hear that Todd Howard has acknowledged the ongoing existence of The Elder Scrolls 6! He even boldly mentioned that the team is actively working on it.

The direct quote, delivered before a deluge of Oblivion Remaster updates and clips, was: “obviously we’re working on the 6th chapter here.”

This tidbit of information is the most substantial news we’ve received about The Elder Scrolls 6 since March 2024, when Bethesda announced that the early builds of ES6 were available for testers to play around with. They even gave us a hopeful nod by suggesting the game might be fun—which is certainly a good thing to hear.

Before this, there was a rather fiery update from a former Skyrim designer, who advised fans not to expect any news on ES6 until six months before its release. That was back in October 2023. Just a month earlier, Phil Spencer had expressed optimism that ES6 was within five years of its release date! At the time, this statement seemed a bit humorous, but here we are, nearly two years later, and we’re still in the dark.

If we’re talking about solid, official updates from Bethesda, they’ve been pretty much silent for a while. In August 2023, they did confirm that development had commenced, which was about five years after the initial announcement at E3. Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t it seem like they might have jumped the gun a bit with that announcement?

All humor aside, it’s reassuring to see at least a small glimmer of progress on Elder Scrolls 6. It’s been ages since the game was first announced; I was still in school back then, and now I’ve graduated to the world of adult responsibilities, complete with bills, questionable habits, and dating apps. Bethesda, staying true to their reputation as the leading first-person RPG developer, will surely deliver something outstanding. Still, could they throw us a bone with some artwork or anything tangible? Even Liam Neeson had more proof of his daughter’s existence in “Taken” than we do of this game being real.

Feel free to share your thoughts below—are you still holding onto hope? And how deep into student loan debt do you think I’ll be by the time Elder Scrolls 6 hits the shelves?