Todd Howard says Bethesda will return to ‘that classic style’ for Elder Scrolls 6: ‘Fallout 76 and Starfield are a little bit of a creative detour’

Bethesda game director Todd Howard recently emerged blinking into the light of day for an interview with Greg Miller on the Kinda Funny Gamescast. During that interview, he pointed out that Starfield’s next update isn’t going to change your mind on Starfield if you didn’t already love it.

The topic of The Elder Scrolls 6 came up as well, with Howard reiterating that he didn’t enjoy having to announce it so far in advance, but did so because otherwise people wouldn’t stop bloody asking about it. It’s our own fault, really. Howard was also careful to point out that Elder Scrolls 6 won’t be anything like Starfield or Fallout 76.

“I think we’ve—if you look at our games—we’ve always evolved,” Howard said. “We do have a certain style that we like and our fans like that we want to get better and better at. I think in some ways—in many ways, Fallout 76 and Starfield are a little bit of a creative detour from that classic Elder Scrolls, Fallout, you know, a Skyrim, or a Fallout 3, or a Fallout 4, Oblivion, where you’re exploring a world in a certain way. And, as we come back to Elder Scrolls 6 that we’re doing now, we’re coming back to that classic style that we’ve missed, that we know really, really well.”

But while we can hope The Elder Scrolls 6 returns to Bethesda’s strengths as a developer, one thing that will be changing is the engine. “We spent the last several years bringing Creation Engine 2, which powers Starfield, up to Creation Engine 3. That’s gonna power Elder Scrolls 6 and beyond,” he said.

While Bethesda used Gamebryo for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3, it switched to the Creation Engine for Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76, and then upgraded that to Creation Engine 2 for Starfield. While the assumption was that this upgrade would be enough to handle Elder Scrolls 6 as well, I guess not. Let’s hope the upgrade means we get less loading screens in The Elder Scrolls 6, whenever it comes out.