‘Tis the season to be jolly, and also to wildly speculate on whether Half-Life 3 will finally happen and when The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be released. And now fans think Bethesda has left a very big clue. Grab your tinfoil hat, folks, it’s going to be a fun one.

The culprit of this clue was a live-action trailer Bethesda made for the release of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim onto Switch 2. By my count, that makes 9 different platforms that Skyrim has been released on. Do with that information what you will.

Anyway, the festive trailer shows some Elves gearing up for Christmas, but one of the little guy’s screws up by accidentally deleted The List, threatening Christmas. Another Elf saves the day by cheerfully suggesting that they should just give everyone Skyrim on Switch 2, and Christmas is saved! Hurrah, and such.

The point is, when the Elf suggests it a classic Skyrim levelling up bar appears above him, showing that his overall level progression is nearing level 20, and that his Speech skill has increased to 27!

Did you catch the clue? Fans are theorising that this is pointing toward 2027 as being an important date, and what’s more important than the next Elder Scrolls game?

Honestly, I get it. The choice of level 20 and Speech level 27 does feel very deliberate, because otherwise, why those numbers? Choose level 19 or 21 and everything’s fine, and whoever came up with this gag would surely have guessed that fans would be sent into a panic as soon as they saw it?

Of course, it doesn’t mean a release. It could be that we should expect to a release date to finally be announced during that year, especially since Bethesda boss Todd Howard recently said that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still “A long way off.” Is 2027 a “long way off”?

But….well, in that same interview, he did also tease the idea that Bethesda could just release the game without any marketing. Just bam – There’s the game. Are we being told that in 2027 The Elder Scrolls 6 might just appear in a puff of smoke one day, sending us all into a frenzy?

Chances are this is absolutely nothing. Hell, the team that made the video may have almost no connection to Bethesda and just tossed it in as a fun nod to Skyrim without realising what they were doing. But it’s fun to believe for a second, right?