The Elder Scrolls 6’s new update is good news for millions of players. Last month, Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda, the makers of games and series like Fallout, DOOM, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, Prey, Quake, and most importantly, The Elder Scrolls. As a result, there’s been a lot of chatter about whether Bethesda’s upcoming games will be locked to Xbox consoles and PC. And The Elder Scrolls 6 has been at the center of these conversations, and specifically whether it will end up on PS5 or be a console exclusive to Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
So far, Microsoft and Bethesda have been coy about the topic, however, in a recent interview, Bethesda’s Todd Howard seemingly provided some good news for the millions of players that will be on PS5 whenever The Elder Scrolls 6 releases.
During a new interview, Howard admitted that it’s hard to imagine The Elder Scrolls 6 being an Xbox exclusive, giving PlayStation players a glimmer of hope. However, at the same time, Howard is leaving the door open for excluding platforms.
“I can’t really project where things will be except to say we’ve done those sort of exercises ourselves as an independent,” said Howard while speaking with Games Industry. “If you look at every Elder Scrolls game, there has been some exclusivity on Xbox or with Microsoft. We’ve partnered with every game. Morrowind was basically a console exclusive, Oblivion was a long timed exclusive, Skyrim’s DLC was exclusive for a long period of time. We’ll decide what makes the best sense for our audience when the time comes, and I can’t really project today what that looks like.”
Howard continued:
“[Microsoft is] very creator-driven, we’re still going to get to be who we are. We’re a subsidiary, but we’re still running our games and pushing everything the way that we have. We felt very strongly about their view of access; games for everybody that we can bring to anybody regardless of where they are, what devices they’re playing on. We’re very, very passionate about that, and at the end of the day we’re convinced we’ll make better products and get them to more people easily by being part of Xbox as opposed to being just a third party.”
For now, Bethesda and Microsoft are being quite cagey about the topic, possibly because of the looming launch of the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. After all, a great selling point for both would be that no other console will have The Elder Scrolls 6 or the next Fallout game. Yet, the language Howard uses, how he stresses the importance of access, makes it sound like Bethesda will not lock its game on console behind Xbox exclusivity as an automatic.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is currently in development at Bethesda Game Studios. At the moment of publishing, there’s been no word of a release date or platforms.
