Why Bethesda Revealed Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 Early

During E3, Bethesda’s showcase included a lot more than most fans were expecting. Fallout 76 dominated the proceedings, of course, but the studio ended the presentation with teaser trailers for both Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6; Bethesda’s two next big RPGs. The teasers didn’t reveal much at all about either title, prompting speculation about when they might actually be released. Recently, at a Fallout 76 press event, Eurogamer spoke with Pete Hines about why the studio teased the two games so early.

Why Bethesda Revealed Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 Early at E3

According to Pete Hines, fans should be very patient for both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6’s release. Asked by Eurogamer when fans might hear more, he said; “A while from now and a really long while from now! Respectively”. However, he continued on to say; “Actually, I should not be quite so dismissive of the question; which is to say – the timeframe for Bethesda Game Studios titles has not changed at all”; Presumably, what Hines means is that the decision to reveal trailers early doesn’t indicate that the games themselves will release any earlier.

Starfield is the Next Major RPG Coming From Bethesda

Hines went on to explain why they chose to tease the games now rather than waiting until after Fallout 76; “What changed was our desire to lay out a roadmap of those titles,” he says; “not like, ‘hey they’re going to be putting out a game every nine months,’ no, it still takes them years between projects, but because we were doing something so different on Fallout 76; taking that franchise in such a different direction, doing an online game that doesn’t look like something you’d expect from BGS. We thought it was important to say; ‘Hey, new IP, single player, sci-fi thing coming, hey we are doing TES6 after that.’ So that people didn’t start spinning off on, like, that’s the end of single player games from Bethesda Game Studios.

“Timeframe-wise, it would still be about as long as you’d expect when you look at Fallout 3 to Skyrim to Fallout 4 to Fallout 76. It’s still going to be those periods of time, that hasn’t changed. Or at least, I don’t think it will change from that based on what I know.”

Certainly, we already know that Starfield has been in development at Bethesda for years already. Neither game yet has a public release date. Hopefully, fans won’t have to wait too long after the launch of Fallout 76 to hear more.