Although nothing's been announced yet, it's certain that Bethesda's working on the next installment of the ES series, although I wouldn't be shocked if we don't hear anything about it until 2018. I'm a big fan of Bethesda's open world games but, like many people, I was pretty unimpressed with Fallout 4, as I didn't feel it really expanded on the formula in any meaningful ways.

So what do people think needs to change (I think a new engine's probably in order)? What new mechanics need to be added and which existing need to be tweaked to keep the formula from going stale? In an ongoing topic on innovation in games over the last seven years, Rebel_Scum mentioned the character switch mechanic in GTAV, which got me thinking - would a multi-character ES game freshen things up? Two characters on different sides of a conflict who eventually come together to defeat the big bad (a bit of a cliche, I know)? Roll in some nemesis system elements to make you feel your choices are having a greater impact on the world, perhaps?

Would be great to hear people's thoughts on this. Despite the mixed critical reception to Fallout 4, do you even think Bethesda will bother changing things up given its commercial success?

Based on what Todd Howard said after E3 last year, I wouldn't expect the next Elder Scrolls until at least 2020.

My bet is that they're gonna dive deeper into the base building aspects. Like actually making it a core part of the campaign, where you become the mayor of a city and it's your job to build and expand and recruit merchants and guards etc etc. Hopefully they'll figure out some way where the game doesn't become "loot everything" though.

@takayamasama: Just seen an article on IGN from a couple of days ago which says the same thing. Hopefully this means they are mixing up the formula.

I like the idea of having multiple characters who turn into NPCs when you're not playing them. The idea of having alts who guard your home, do some gathering, and serve as NPC battle companions would be fun. And leveling up these alts would get you a chance to try different play styles, explore more areas, and give each a unique story, without having to erase the world and your impact on it.

@darknorth: That was exactly my thinking. Always seemed weird my character could be the greatest thief in the land but also the stoutest warrior. Being able to shape two different character builds in one game could be fun

New IP1 will release in 2018.

New IP2 will release in 2020-21.

Elder Scrolls VI will release in 2023-24.

Considering the amount of time that will have passed and the power upgrades in PCs and consoles by that point, I think it will feel very different than Skyrim or Fallout 4. Todd Howard said in an interview that if he started to talk about their plans for Elder Scrolls VI, people would go "wait, you don't have the technology to do something like that". Safe to say it will be a big upgrade.

Definitely don't want multiple playable characters though. Better companions are welcome though.

Coincidentally I was just thinking about making this thread the other day since I started playing Skyrim again. To me, I would hope the third person was better; I don't use it, but I might if it was done better. I would hope the combat was a little more tactical and more impactful. The animations, be it facial or body being more realistic would be nice. More variety in its setting I'd appreciate as well. Focus even more on plot and characters. I think they could do a lot more with NPC dialogue at least, not only is it repetitive, but a lot of them have the same voice actor/actress to them. Lastly, I think there are far too many side quests that fill the menu where it's just a fetch quest or something similar to it, I don't much care for that. I tend to try to do them all, and they're not great in and of themselves. Oh, I guess there is one more thing; while I know there may be some that like it, and while I don't actually care if they retain it in the sequel, I think they put way, way too many books in there about the universe. I like to know about that stuff, but it becomes a bore to read all that when I'd rather just go out and explore the world. I only really read the ones that are about the missions I'm on, otherwise I open them and then close them just in case there's an upgrade point.

@bojackhorseman: I think this thread was a little more premature than I'd originally envisioned!

I'm hoping they can figure out something with bethesda.net and make some kind of asymmetric multiplayer functionality. They used bethesda.net to unify mod availability between PC and consoles for both Fallout 4 and Skyrim: Special Edition and I think they could do some very cool stuff if they keep moving in that direction.

Essentially, they should have something like Drivatars from Forza or player summons from Dark Souls but AI controlled. Have other players' characters appear wandering in the world every now and then. Although they would probably need to make a pre-set naming system to avoid gamertag style names, and maybe tie it to a player level somehow.

For the settlement stuff, they look at Super Mario Maker and try an option of taking all the empty settlements in the base game and replacing them with player modded versions. So if you start a second playthrough the settlements in the game world are all different. People already share mods that adjust parts of settlements, so it would be integrating that aspect into the game directly.

Of course, these things are going even further in the sandbox direction so would probably need to be optional, but I think something along these lines could be really interesting. I imagine they have some plans for bethesda.net.

Weird complaint. Just continue not reading them. Problem solved?

Too bad the mmo game will probably push any elder scrolls game back. I've tried to like fallout but just haven't gotten into any of them, would much rather play a new elder scrolls. Fallout's world is so dull to me

According to Todd Howard, they've got two games that aren't Fallout or Elder Scrolls coming before TES VI. He claims they are "bigger than anything we've done," and "what I would call... kind of different, but still the kind of game people would associate with us."

To me that translates as two completely new 200+ hour open world RPGs that will come out before the next Elder Scrolls. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we don't see TES VI for like 10 years.

On the topic of what I want out of the next Elder Scrolls, or just the next Bethesda game in general, there are definitely things I want to see improved. The first and most important thing is the story and dialogue. Give me some characters to actually get to know and care about. Tell a genuinely interesting main story instead of something I'll ignore for the first 80 hours because it's boring and cliche. Make me want to talk to people because they have interesting things to say, not because I have the compulsion to talk to every NPC in every RPG no matter how valueless their dialogue is. Put simply, hire some better writers.

There are also technical improvements I'd like to see, a big one being the removal of loading screens. Plenty of other open world games have seamless transition between the greater world, cities, interiors, and dungeons without ever stopping to load. The 10 seconds or whatever it takes to load isn't even my biggest issue, it's the disconnect that's created when you enter a building and it feels like you're somewhere else. Being able to look out a window or open the front door and see that you're still part of the world is huge for that sense of cohesion.

I'd also like to really see them do proper cities in an Elder Scrolls games. Even the biggest cities consist of like 4 streets and maybe a dozen buildings. I want to see something on the scale of Novigrad in an Elder Scrolls game, something that feels like an actual medieval city.

In general, I think Bethesda really needs to step up their game more than ever. Their last several games have felt very similar without really improving much from one to the next. Couple that with a game like The Witcher 3 doing the whole exploration thing nearly as well as Bethesda while absolutely blowing them away in the narrative and character department, and Bethesda really needs to step it up.

I'm not sure if there will be another Elder Scrolls game. If one of these three new IPs Bethesda is putting out become successful then I imagine they will go all in on them. Beth has been alternating between making Elder Scrolls and Fallout for decades now, I bet the devs would rather rip their own eyeballs out than work on another one.

But if they is then I think they NEED to go back and look at what made Morrowind so popular and why that game is still loved now. They need to look at the writing, worldbuilding and even the game mechanics and then update them and reenvision them for a more modern context (and not just as shitty fan-service like the Dragonborn DLC).

I reaaaaaaaally liked Fallout 4 when I first started playing it. It was the game I was waiting for even before Skyrim launched. Then a few hours later, I started kind of disliking it. It had so many issues, or rather, features that were absent that totally should not have been for a sequel to Fallout 3.

But then I installed a shitton of mods and now it is reaaaaaaally fucking awesome again. I currently have exactly 61 mods installed that all do something to make it a true follow up to Fallout 3. Whereas I would argue something like XCOM 2 is super rad without any mods, but mods make it even better, I'd say Fallout 4 absolutely needs mods to be good. Which is a bad thing when you really think about it, but the end result is still the same.

@ll_exile_ll: I agree with all of this.

Honestly the only thing I hope they work on is the speech system. Make it more like fallout perhaps. In FO, speech is hugely important and can effect the game so many ways. In ES, prices are a bit better and sometimes you don't have to do 1 out 35 fetch quests.

I know it's blasphemy considering almost everyone plays elder scrolls by doing whatever, whenever they want but I would like to see more of a morality system as well.

Bethesda has already confirmed TES6 is in the works, and they obviously love Elder Scrolls. There are two new IPs and a new TES in the works. That is the project slate for Bethesda right now.

Skyrim is both a bigger commercial and critical success than Morrowind, so I don't think they would take too many lessons from Morrowind. Skyrim is loved just as much as Morrowind, if not more. That being said though, I think a new ES game needs to have more focus on story and characters. When Skyrim came out, Bethesda were kind of the only ones who did that stuff, but now they have competition from developers like CD Projekt Red and even Rockstar.

I have full confidence that Bethesda will deliver, as they almost always do. Fallout 4 is my least favorite Bethesda game, but after the DLC they launched, it has become pretty fantastic. Shame it didn't launch as well as this, but still, now I love the game. Just took me a little longer than it usually does with Bethesda.

That switching mechanuc worked in GTA because of the personal nature of the relationships between them. I don't have any desire to see that from bethesda in one of their RPGs.

Personally I'd like a denser, bigger world and more old school skill diversity. Not Oblivion, which was just as shallow just in a flatter se se, but more like daggerfall, where you could do shit like scale the walls of a fort.

Biggest thing they could do honestly is make it play well. Find a way to make a unique and engaging first person combat system.

@xanadu: A morality system would be interesting but it would need to be quite complex for it to be anything but obnoxious to me. If it were to impact specific bubbles of influence based on what, where, when, and who that could be really neat. If it's just universal and the begger two towns over knows I stabbed that guy last week, it wouldn't add anythi g for me in a game as open and system heavy as ES.

I could see a vaguely Fable esque system for some of it working: maybe you have multiple origins when creating a character, so you might be well dressed and appear wealthy to observers, or you may have prison tattoos. It could impact how people reacted to you or even open up new opportunities.

Also for the love of god work on the Guard behaviors. More options than "come with me kind sir" or "die you fucking scum!"

Bethesda has three new projects in the works not just two. And yeah, loving Elder Scrolls and working on it for a constant decade are two very different things. It would be soul destroying not to move on after a while. If they put out a game that's just as successful why should they go back? There is a reason ESO exists. It's to keep Elder Scrolls fans happy while they make other games.

Skyrim was a bigger fincial success because of course it was, Morrowind came out at an entirely different era when people played a different type of game. But to say Skyrim is considered more of a critical success or is more loved? That's just not true whatsoever. If you spend more than five minutes on the Teslore board and you will see. Morrowind is universally considered the best Elder Scrolls game. Everything good about Elder Scrolls that sets it apart from every other RPG came from Morrowind. Morrowind by far has the best story, most unique world and had the most ingenuity that the other Elder Scrolls games have never even come close to touching.

@bojackhorseman: It's not really weird. To me, I think they could do a better job of telling the story of the universe without having books upon books all over. It's not that interesting. Make them more compact and perhaps personal if anything. I also am naming a bunch of things I wish it did better, but I do like the game overall. To me, the complaint isn't really just 'too much reading', it's the content that's there and the way it's presented I think they could do better at.

I... I don't know what to say. When the goal is to create a huge world with thousands of years of history, how could they do that without books? And why would they do that without books. I might have understood if it was a tight campaign like Bioshock or something, but it's a world that's meant be experienced for hundreds of hours. Books are a great way to flavor the world. Especially the way Bethesda do it, with the actuals books showing up like they do, instead of just being a text you scroll through.

Better leveling mechanics, better combat, open the magic system up again. Hopefully they don't add another gimmick mechanic again like shouts or the power armor from 4.

I say this as a guy who loves Elder Scrolls (started with Morrowind): No more floaty combat, ever. I play every Elder Scrolls game as an sneaky archer, as it is the least weird feeling to me. It's a restarted character every time - I would dearly love to sword and board - but it breaks me every time. I am hopeful that in this post Witcher 3 world it will be something Bethesda will prioritize.

Like I said, Bethesda has three projects in the pipeline. Two of them are new IPs, one of them is TES6. Nothing in that article says anything different from that.

And wow. What a bunch of... Weird things to say in your comment. Just wow. Never have a been so perplexed while discussing on these boards. Again, Bethesda love TES, and would never abandon it. Yes, they are working on other games, and that is natural, and the progress they make with those games will only strengthen TES6. Pretty sure if you asked Todd Howard which games series he would pick to work on forever if he could only choose one, that would be TES.

Skyrim is certainly a bigger critical success, there's no doubt about that. Morrowind garnered great reviews when it came out, and it's a great game, but it's reviews and general reception did not match Skyrim at it's launch. And yes, Morrowind is a beloved game, but there is no such thing as a TES game that is universally considered the best. I for instance think Oblivion is the best TES game. It probably has a correlation to which one you played first, and for a lot of people, that is Skyrim.

Morrowind certainly had one of the best stories. I actually loved Oblivion's story, and think it rivals Morrowind's story, but that's subjective. Morrowind had a unique world, no doubt about that, but I think it's probably also my least favorite world. Never loved the huge mushrooms and the ash areas. And that everything good about TES that set's it apart from other RPGs came from Morrowind just ain't true. For instance, it was with Oblivion that a actual hit registered each time, and was not just a dice roll. That's certainly one of the most important aspects of a TES game now.

Morrowind is great. But it's not the best game in the world, and it's not the best game in the TES series.

Elder Scrolls is kinda in a weird place for me right now... For a decent bit it was acceptable (if not reductive) to call Bethesda's Fallout and Elder Scrolls the same game, structurally. With the introduction of base building in Fallout 4, though, that game (and potentially the series) skews towards more freeform design. Does Elder Scrolls 6 follow that design philosophy, or do these two series start to diverge on a mechanical level as well as an aesthetic one?

@bojackhorseman: I don't actually disagree with that. I'm just not that into walking into a room with five plus books that have ten maybe plus pages of things that don't pertain to where I'm at, or the people around it. Like I said in the first post, I don't care if it's something that's retained in its sequels. I find it negligible and edited it into my original post since I was naming off things I disliked. I don't know how they could get me more invested in the books strewn around, but yeah, I don't think they're that interesting. There are a lot that I think that are about the overall universe, and yet don't affect much of the world that my player character is in, and so it takes interest away to me.

Fair enough. I'm a crazy person though. I actually role play in those worlds. Or try to at least. Easier when I was younger. Remember in Oblivion I used to grab a book and read it by the fire in my home at night. Made me love the world. Wish I could be that invested in games again. Oh, 2006, you were so long ago.

I don't see what the point of multiple characters would be because the protagonists in Elder Scrolls games aren't really characters. They're just avatars. And since most of the stuff in the game doesn't really have continuity (as in most of the quest lines are siloed) you can already play a thief for the Dark Brotherhood storyline and a wizard for the magic college. There's nothing stopping you except the intro areas, which you can blaze by if you know them.

What do I want to see? More focus on the urban areas. The countryside in Skyrim is great, but the cities are small and empty feeling. Part of that is the setting, but part of it is that the zones are just too small and cramped for what they're supposed to accomplish. Some big sprawling cities with internal intrigue and storyline would be really cool. Something near the size and density of a Grand Theft Auto game (but split into multiple cities, so each city is smaller than a GTA city but the combined size is similar) would be amazing.

After five games, I think it's finally time we play as an Elder Scroll.

I'm excited to blind someone.

Having multiple player characters is actually lore breaking to the Elder Scrolls universe.

That's not true. A very large part of the community enjoys those games because of immersion. Morrowind was most certainly not better at that than Skyrim. Skyrim looks a whole lot better and with the way quests work, it is also a ton better. If you spend some time on any place but a lore board, you would see that there are tons of people that played both and prefer Skyrim.

That was pretty good.

One of the reasons Morrowind is so loved is BECAUSE it does immersion better than the other Elder Scrolls games, I mean Austin even wrote an article on that recently. It's pretty strange that you would say that. The biggest argument that Skyrim is better is usually because of the game mechanics being better (as it's newer) but I have never seen anybody actually argue that Skyrim was more immersive. Honestly, just go ahead a google Elder Scrolls Games Ranked, the majority of them will have Morrowind first or if they are an older fan Daggerfall first and Morrowind second.

Oh, well, if it's on a google search it has to be true.

...

Dude, your whole point fell flat in this thread alone. Morrowind is beloved, but there's no such thing as a universally hailed best TES game. It seems like @zevvion prefers Skyrim, and I prefer Oblivion. Out of the three of us discussing in this thread, it's three different games. And just for laughs I did google that shit. Try clicking on that top reddit thread that shows up. Yeah, there's a fair amount of Morrowind, but there's a lot of Skyrim and Oblivion as well. People like different games. I mean like, it's not something to feel bad about or anything. Morrowind is still good. Oh, and I definitely think Skyrim is more immersive than Morrowind. Both need mods to achieve a high level of immersion, but the best mods for Skyrim just blow Morrowind out of the water.

@jonny_anonymous: Better immersion than Skyrim? NPC's stay in place, in Skyrim they behave based on your actions. The world looks lackluster, yes of course because it is an older game, that's still an argument. The world in Skyrim looks so much better.

Let me ask you this: how many people turned off Skyrim after 60-120 hours after they completed it and said: okay, back to Morrowind! Almost nobody. There is no denying that Skyrim is more successful than Morrowind, just as you can't deny some people prefer Skyrim over Morrowind. Further evidenced by the fact that people chose Skyrim over Morrowind in the Steam awards. The fact you think you can speak for everyone is absurd, especially when you look at raw numbers. At the very least 'universally considered the best TES game' is as false as false can be.

Do you mind rattling off a few of the less obvious mods you have that change the game? I'm thinking about starting a new playthrough; I was around 50 hours in and fell off. Also have all the dlc if that's relevant.

@zevvion: Consdering that I have mentioned Teslore, googling and Austin's article not sure how it ever came across that I was "speaking for everyone."

When you say Morrowind is universally considered the best game in the series, saying no one can argue against that, you kinda are speaking for everyone. Sure, you can drop a couple of weird and totally not relevant links, but that doesn't change how you come across. Okay, so Austin has an article about Morrowind, just like a ton of people have articles about Oblivion or Skyrim.

Just... Ugh. Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim are all great games, and people love them, and people have their own favorites. Can't believe why that is so hard to take.

I love the Elder Scrolls games (not the mmo though...) but I'm fine with them taking a good 10 year break. I hope if/when they make a new one there's no multiplayer aspect; I like just diving into the Elder Scrolls world and doing my own thing and reading books and getting lost.

@heaveninblack: See this here, just made it.