Bethesda VP of Marketing Pete Hines could not get away from the Elder Scrolls VI questions at Quake Con last weekend. After saying in one interview that the studio would create Elder Scrolls VI before remastering Morrowind or Oblivion, he was asked by another interviewer if Elder Scrolls VI was next on Bethesda’s radar, even though Hines said at E3 they weren’t making the game “at the moment.”
Hines bluntly answered that the studio has a right to make games that aren’t Elder Scrolls or Fallout.
This studio is not a vending machine. They’re not a two-button vending machine, where first we press Elder Scrolls and then we press Fallout, and then we press Elder Scrolls and then we press Fallout… They’re an incredibly talented studio of creative people. They’ve now made four games in a row, all of which were named Game of the Year, and they have a right to decide what they’re interested in working on next and which direction they want to go.
He then went on to say that he doesn’t question the studio director, Todd Howard, when he decides what game he currently wants to make.
He’s got reasons why, and I think once we get down the road, those reasons will be more evident to folks once we get there, or maybe not. But at the end of the day, these folks have a right to not just have to make Elder Scrolls game after Elder Scrolls game, which is why they switched to Fallout, and they have a right to stretch their legs and try something else or do something different.
I know what they’re working on for the next decade, and I think all of them are things to get excited about, for different reasons, and once they come out, folks will enjoy them for what they are.
As for what Todd Howard is thinking about, he’s said he has “lots of ideas,” and some of those ideas include “exploring some things [in VR].”
In true Bethesda fashion, they most likely won’t talk about it until they are ready, but those new things aren’t Elder Scrolls VI right now.
