Bruce Nesmith

Bethesda have marked the 30th anniversary of Elder Scrolls with the faintest of mentions of The Elder Scrolls 6, the faraway next game in the fated fantasy RPG series. They say they're even now playing work-in-progress versions of the game, which was announced five years ago, and are having a jolly old time revisiting Tamriel. Alright for some.

The Elder Scrolls 6 exists as a work-in-progress early build, Bethesda has confirmed, in a brief statement which notes the game is now very much «in development».

Say what you will about Starfield, but there’s no denying the hype around Bethesda Game Studios’ next big title, The Elder Scrolls 6. In a tweet celebrating 30 years of the franchise, the developer confirmed that it’s “playing early builds” of the eagerly-awaited sequel.

Starfield released a little over two months ago on PC and Xbox. However, despite a strong start which saw Starfield become the «biggest Bethesda game launch» of all time, things have tailed off a bit now. In fact, there are currently more people playing Bethesda's earlier RPG, Skyrim, over on Steam.

is a massive game, touting over 100 different star systems and 1,000 planets in its enormous scope. Sadly, since the game launched, many have complained that while expansive, the Settled Systems in feel empty, making its thousand planets far less appealing and impressive. Recently, however, it's been revealed by an ex-Bethesda employee that early in the game's development, conversations took place that may have resulted in a completely different game.

A former Bethesda veteran says that all decisions at the studio “run through” director Todd Howard.

The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, released way back in 1996, was the second installment in what went on to become Bethesda’s beloved, genre-defining RPG series, but it sounds like it was a particularly tricky one to get off the launchpad - and that if it hadn’t come together it could have meant the end of the studio itself.

Bruce Nesmith, a former Bethesda veteran who was lead designer on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has said that he “probably played Skyrim for 1,000 hours" and that for "950 of those hours, it was broken”. 

Stop for a second and picture your favorite video game developer or publisher. It doesn’t matter their “scale” as long as they’re prominent. More than likely, you can name-drop at least one or two people who are the “faces” of that company. For example, Nintendo has Eiji Aonuma, Shigeru Miyamoto, Doug Bowser, etc. Microsoft has Phil Spencer, Sony has/had Jim Ryan, and on it goes. For Bethesda, they have/had many people who have helped define them over the years for one reason or another. Easily, the one that most people know is Todd Howard. He’s the guy who honestly makes the biggest announcements for the company and helps crank out their best games.

If Todd Howard up and left Bethesda, it would "leave a big hole," says Skyrim's lead designer, insisting that the Starfield director has "an attribute that none of the rest of us did."

Skyrim design lead Bruce Nesmith, who's now ex-Bethesda after leaving the studio during Starfield's development, reckons the iconic RPG largely kickstarted the open-world-ification of games.

The lead designer of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has discussed the difference in design philosophy between Bethesda games and Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3.

Former Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith left Bethesda, and his updated role as senior systems designer, partway through Starfield's development, so he was as surprised as the rest of us when the massive space RPG was released in remarkably good condition. 

A lot of big games came out this year, and we, as gamers, should be grateful for everything we’ve gotten to play. The twist is that there are still things coming out, and the farther we get from other releases, the more we will see the “cracks” in their armor or compare them to other releases to determine “who did what better.” Two big games that are serious Game of the Year Contenders that have been widely compared are Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3. Both are deep adventures full of customization and choices, but the teams’ behind them had different philosophies when it came to deciding what players experienced.

A former Bethesda developer who served as Skyrim's lead designer predicts The Elder Scrolls 6's full reveal will mirror Fallout 4's, in the sense that we probably won't hear much else about the RPG until about six months before launch.

One of Starfield's senior developers has been reflecting on the game after launch, revealing in a new interview that they reckon the space RPG could have benefited from going into greater detail on fewer planets. One of the reasons is that "some of the exploration stuff didn't come through as well as it could've."

Liked Starfield? Hated Starfield? You probably have Todd Howard to thank. A recent chat between MinnMax and Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith shed some light on Bethesda's structure and organisation, and it sure sounds like pretty much every choice the company makes needs Howard's stamp of approval before it can go ahead, even as it's grown bigger over the years. To be fair to Howard, though, it seems like that's in spite of his own wishes.

In Starfield,there's a quest where you get to betray a major player. I'm going to keep the details vague to avoid spoilers, but in a lot of other RPGs this would be a massive story moment. If you walk down this path, you'll never be able to interact with that faction again. You're signing up for this life over that one.

At this point, it’s safe to say that people are ready for The Elder Scrolls 6. While we’re likely still years away from playing it, it feels as though Bethesda will start putting more stock into the Skyrim follow-up now that Starfield is out.

In a recent interview with MinnMax, Bethesda developer Bruce Nesmith—whose work as a systems designer can be seen in Starfield—revealed that the company made the decision to announce The Elder Scrolls 6 so early because “pitchforks and torches were out”.

Todd Howard of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3 and 4 fame had apparently told Bethesda that a multiplayer game would be a bad idea. Ultimately, however, pressure from fans convinced him to give multiplayer games a shot, resulting in the release of Fallout 76.

While Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield will still receive support, the studio is pivoting towards its next highly-anticipated title, The Elder Scrolls 6. While it’s gone from pre-production to early development, there’s still a lot we don’t know, from the setting and the mechanics to when it releases. Even Microsoft is unsure about its exclusivity period, though it believes a release some five years down the line is possible.

Starfield's big. Real big. Over 1,000 planets big. However that illusion of bigness really vanishes when the game reuses particular prefabs. You can only go through the exact same space base so many times before you start feeling like you're on the Truman Show.

Bethesda and Todd Howard announced Elder Scrolls 6 when they did because of fan demand, or in the words of Skyrim's lead designer Bruce Nesmith, because «the pitchforks and torches were out».

In a recent interview with YouTube channel MinnMax, Bethesda veteran Bruce Nesmith touched on Fallout 76's disastrous launch, stating that the team's «hubris caught up» with them. He goes on to say that the studio was starting to talk itself into thinking it was «infallible,» thanks to all the critical acclaim.

It's been five years since Todd Howard revealed the startling news that yes, Bethesda is going to make The Elder Scrolls 6, and it will be years yet before it actually arrives. It's a virtually unprecedented gap between a game's «announcement» (such as it was) and tangible evidence that something's being done to make it happen, and Howard himself said not too long ago that he regrets handling the reveal the way he did. The obvious question then is, why announce it at all? According to longtime Bethesda designer Bruce Nesmith, the fans basically bullied him into it.

Many “balances” go on in the video game space that are meant to protect all involved while also giving players the best games possible. Sadly, as we all know by now, not all of those balances work out. For example, video game developers often do “crunch” to try and rush a game out versus delaying it, which causes many problems. You might have heard of a game featuring King Kong that was a disaster because the team was forced to complete it in one year. Then, there’s the Elder Scrolls 6 announcement that people still make fun of today.

Bethesda’s former design director has some insights into what separates an RPG like Skyrim from an RPG like Baldur’s Gate 3.

Bethesda's former design director has revealed an internal debate around the number of planets in Starfield early on in the game's development.

Long-time Bethesda Game Studios designer Bruce Nesmith is featured in the latest MinnMax interview, discussing topics from The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall to Starfield.

Bethesda's former design director thinks The Elder Scrolls 6 will keep The Elder Scroll 5: Skyrim's levelling up and progression system.

Bethesda's former design director has said the developer thought it was infallible ahead of Fallout 76's disastrous launch.

The Elder Scrolls 6, as nebulous as it might feel, is eventually coming, and Bethesda’s former design director has shared some tidbits on what could be carried over from previous games, including Skyrim’s progression and magic systems.

Todd Howard reportedly told Bethesda executives that a multiplayer game would be "a bad idea" on several occasions - before pressure from fans eventually encouraged him to make Fallout 76.

A Bethesda veteran says that Fallout 76's difficult launch was a result of the company's "hubris."

The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be a mixture of new ideas and RPG systems that go all the way back to The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, according to Bethesda's former design director Bruce Nesmith, who was lead designer on The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and senior designer on Starfield. In particular, Nesmith reckons it will "absolutely" continue with Skyrim's approach to levelling and progression, whereby you improved skills by performing the associated actions. He also thinks the game will "probably" retain elements of the magic system he designed for Skyrim, which broke away from Oblivion and Morrowind in being simpler to understand and more immediately powerful, at the price of flexibility and inventiveness.