Todd Howard wants Elder Scrolls 6 to be the "ultimate fantasy-world simulator" but won't say how Bethesda's going to do it

For reasons I won't get into here because it may constitute a little bit of a spoiler, the planet Earth in Starfield is a bit of a wasteland. But what if it was The Wasteland—that is, the post-nuclear hellscape of Bethesda's other big sci-fi-ish game series, Fallout? In an interview with The Washington Post, creative director Todd Howard said developers actually gave thought to the idea.

You may have heard about a little space game called Starfield, the gravitational pull from which risks swallowing all games discourse for months and possibly years to come. Perhaps that's no surprise for a game that's been in development and hyped for as long as any title that I can remember (well, ones that have shipped anyway) but it's easy to forget now the thing's in our hands that it was subject to multiple delays along the way.

In an interview with Famitsu, Starfield lead and Bethesda frontman Todd Howard stated that the game's mod support «will be available next year» (obtained via machine translation), which likely refers to Starfield's equivalent to the Creation Kit modding tools for Skyrim and Fallout 4.

In late 2001, the dot-com crash struck ZeniMax, and a team of thirty-some developers in the company’s basement feared for their jobs. They were late delivering their new role-playing game, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, to Microsoft; their board of directors had begun having doubts about the whole videogame enterprise. People were pulling seven-day workweeks on something none of them were sure would ever see the light of day. Morale was in the toilet.

Starfield is officially out, and modders have been working hard creating helpful add-ons, from useful, quality-of-life mods such as revamping the inventory UI to unofficially adding support for DLSS. Others have added more cosmetic things like reskin in-game clothes. And then there are some people out there who keep modding Bethesda's Todd Howard into the game.

Bethesda exec Todd Howard has claimed that Fallout 76’s troubled launch ultimately helped the studio’s developers become better judges of when their games are actually ready to be released.

We all knew that Starfield would have a packed Nexus Mods page in its first week of release, but the dedication of the playerbase is still awe-inspiring. We're only on day three of its early access period and there are already 334 mods uploaded to Nexus at the time of writing. 124 of which were shared today. So, it's no surprise that some of them already centre around the main man himself, the one and only: Todd Howard.

Todd Howard seems to be in a wordy mood as Starfield finally launches after eight years of development and even more concepting. Just yesterday the Bethesda boss sent a victory lap letter to Xbox and Zenimax staff, and Howard also shared a message with reviewers – who've now given the game largely positive scores, with our own Starfield review giving it the highest score we can – acknowledging the fears behind the RPG's production. 

The Elder Scrolls VI is now in early development, Bethesda has confirmed. Speaking to Spanish publication Vandal, Bethesda's Head of Publishing Pete Hines confirmed that while the hype for Starfield draws ever so close, some developers at the studio have been working on the Tamriel fantasy sequel, which has now left the pre-production stage. Both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 were revealed at the 2018 E3 event, with the former sci-fi RPG being way ahead in the release pipeline. For now, Bethesda is fully focused on its launch and potential post-launch support, and therefore, it'll be at least a few years before we hear any new details about TES 6.

Three things are always in your future: death, taxes, and yet another version of Skyrim. It seems Bethesda boss Todd Howard is in on the joke, even when he's writing internal messages to the rest of the dev team.

Bethesda has warned Elder Scrolls fans not to expect a significant update on the next series entry anytime soon.

Starfield is so close, you can almost feel the cold void clutching at your bones through the thin sheen of your delicate spacesuit: September 1 for everyone who's purchased the Premium or Constellation editions of the game, and September 6 for everyone else. And when it's finally out the door, that clears the deck for the game everyone's really been waiting for: The Elder Scrolls 6. Right? Well, yes, but not anytime soon.