Bethesda has officially revealed that its next Elder Scrolls game is called The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel. Anyone hoping the announcement would come with a proper look at the game, however, will be disappointed. We’ve got a name and another brief teaser, more than eight years after the first one.
The reveal arrived as part of Bethesda Game Studios’ 40th anniversary celebrations. The brief teaser shows sand blowing across an Elder Scroll and closes with this cryptic passage:
The scroll offered only a shimmer, a veil thinly lifted to my eyes. A future lost. A victory undone. Sands of time scattered by fate.
The passage is attributed to Yazar, a Moth Priest serving Hammerfell’s High Queen Iradne, and dated 4E 206. There’s something for the lore enthusiasts to pick apart, then, although it doesn’t tell the rest of us much about what we’ll actually be doing.
The name also takes us to Sentinel, a city and kingdom within Hammerfell. In a post from Bethesda Game Studios, the developer described the announcement as a reveal of both the name and location, while warning that more information is still some way off.
For context, The Elder Scrolls VI was originally announced at E3 2018. That’s nearly eight and a half years ago, and Skyrim itself turns 15 this month. At this rate, the Elder Scroll in question is going to be my goddamn 90th birthday card.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have hoped we’d get something more substantial by now. In terms of showing us the actual game, this feels only slightly further along than that original teaser.
To be fair, Tom Warren’s reporting last week suggested Bethesda would only reveal the name, so a big blowout was never promised. That doesn’t make another tiny glimpse much less disappointing after such a long wait.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier has offered a reminder of why that original announcement came so early. According to Schreier, Bethesda revealed The Elder Scrolls VI and Starfield in 2018 to reassure single-player fans amid the announcement of the multiplayer Fallout 76.
He also cautioned: “Sorry to say this game is still more than 2 years away!” That’s his assessment, rather than an official release window, but it suggests we shouldn’t expect Sentinel before late 2028 at the earliest. After all, Schreier tends to know stuff, and he makes this claim with confidence.
Still, the game is alive and development continues. We now have a proper name to attach to the wait, but there’s still no release date or window, and Bethesda isn’t ready to show us the adventure behind it.
