Ex Bethesda Design Director Reveals The Elder Scrolls 6 May Keep "Skyrim" Leveling System

Bethesda’s next project in development, The Elder Scrolls 6, entered early development in August 2023, five years after its initial announcement. The news came weeks before the global release of its current action RPG, Starfield, which has had a successful launch and generally positive reviews.

As expected, fans of The Elder Scrolls have been anticipating the next entry into the franchise since it was revealed in June 2018. However, as it’s most likely we won’t hear anything from the studio regarding The Elder Scrolls 6, a former designer has provided some hints as to what to expect from a design perspective.

According to an interview with Ben Hanson on the YouTube channel, MinnMax, former Design Director at Bethesda Softworks, Bruce Nesmith, discussed his extraordinary career at the studio while providing some commentary on what to expect from The Elder Scrolls 6. When asked what ideas or influences will be carried over into The Elder Scrolls 6 with Nesmith having departed the studio after his retirement in 2022, he first responded that while Todd Howard “knows what he wants,” everything else will be worked on and finalized in development.

Nevertheless, things that can be expected will continue The Elder Scrolls legacy since they were developed in Oblivion and Skyrim and will be expanded on in The Elder Scrolls 6. Nesmith continued that he does not know what these may be; however, avid fans will undoubtedly recognize the “fingerprints” of his work, influence, and ideas in the game.

The whole magic system for Skyrim, I persuaded Todd [Howard] to let me throw out the baby and the bathwater and let me restart from scratch, and he trusted me enough to do that. There will probably still be traces of that in [The Elder Scrolls] six.

Nesmith further expanded on this, stating, “The whole, ‘you do it to get better at it,’ while that was not my unique idea, I had a large hand in that, that’s absolutely going to continue. A lot of the concepts dealing with how you level and things like that, you know there’ll be a bunch of new ideas thrown in, but I’m betting some of the stuff that I worked on will still survive to the new one.”

As the game has started its production fairly recently and after the conclusion of the lengthy FTC vs. Microsoft trial, The Elder Scrolls 6 is reportedly “expected 2026 or later.” With the acquisition finalized, it remains unclear if The Elder Scrolls 6 will be kept platform-exclusive or have a PlayStation launch.