Microsoft wind up ELDER SCROLLS fans by hinting at the next game's title

Elder Scrolls fans have become a patient breed, with developers Bethesda clocking in almost fifteen years since the release of the last mainline game in the series, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Skyrim has sold over 60 million copies to become one of the best-selling individual video games of all time, so fans are understandably antsy over when the sequel will be released.

Bethesda did confirm way back in 2018 that The Elder Scrolls VI was in development, allaying fears after the release of multiplayer spin-off prequel, The Elder Scrolls Online. However, with Bethesda all-in on developing Fallout 4 (2015), Fallout 76 (2018) and Starfield (2023), the game had to take a back seat, with full-time development only beginning after Starfield's release three years ago. The game is now Bethesda's main focus, but when to expect it is a key question. Even a six-year development window these days feels quite short, but that would still mean the game not appearing before late 2029, potentially even drifting into the 2030s. Hopefully Bethesda have had a second team working on the game to ensure we get it before then.

Whilst that question will not be answered for some considerable time, another one has been hinted at: what the game will be called. Asha Sharma, the head of Xbox at Microsoft, tweeted that she had seen a playthrough of Elder Scrolls VI and been very impressed (presumably less-impressed at the protest outside Bethesda's Rockville HQ against recent layoffs). Most notably, she called it The Elder Scrolls VI: ********. To emphasise this, Bethesda tweeted back that it was awesome to be able to show her "********." This would seemingly emphasise that the game's title consists of eight letters and one word.

Previous Elder Scrolls games have largely had titles built around locations. The third and fifth games, Morrowind and Skyrim, are named after provinces of the Empire of Tamriel. The first game, Arena, and spin-off game Battlespire are named after individual buildings (though "the Arena" is an archaic name for the whole continent as well). The fourth game, Oblivion, was named after a plane of existence. Spin-off games Redguard and Blades are named after factions within the universe.

With the sixth game widely believed to take place in western Tamriel, in the provinces of High Rock and Hammerfell, this opens up some intriguing possibilities for the game's title.

• The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel is a noisome title. Sentinel is the name of the capital city of Hammerfell, and likely a key location in the game.
• The Elder Scrolls VI: Dominion sounds pretty good. The series metaplot has focused on the rise of the Aldemari Dominion and its challenge to the power of the Empire. This was explored in a key questline in Skyrim. Fans have been theorising that the full-scale confrontation between the Empire and the Dominion, possibly in Hammerfell, is a likely storyline in the sixth game.
• The Elder Scrolls VI: Orsinium. Orsinium is a major city-state and kingdom in High Rock, and is the home of Tamriel's civilised orcish civilisation.
• The Elder Scrolls VI: Redguard. The Redguards are the primary inhabitants of Hammerfell and are one of the setting's most popular factions. However, no main series game has been named after a faction before. Also, a 1998 action spin-off game was called The Elder Scroll Adventures: Redguard, which might get confusing. That game is very old though and extremely obscure (as well as likely the franchise's least-selling title), and the title is pretty good, so don't put it past Bethesda to reuse it.
• The Elder Scrolls VI: Highrock. Maybe the developers have decided to lose the space.

Hopefully this is a hint we might get more information about the game soon, but it's really past time.

Of course, it might be the eight characters were totally random and none of this actually means anything, but fans are so devoid of clues that they'll take anything at this point.