The Elder Scrolls 6was announced in 2018, and since then the lack of specific detail about the hotly anticipated title has had fans speculating about many of the features the new game could include. While there’s been no confirmation about theSkyrimsuccessor’s story or setting, Todd Howard has claimed that the game will make extensive use of procedural generation to create a huge in-game world.
There are many waysThe Elder Scrolls 6could revolutionize the franchise’s formula, including drastically increasing the size of the world and its main towns and cities. However there’s one far smaller change that, if focused on throughout the game’s world, could bringThe Elder Scrolls 6to life in a way that wouldn’t risk undermining a core tenet of the series: player freedom.
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Surpassing Skyrim From a Technical Perspective
There are plenty of waysThe Elder Scrolls 6could increase the series' scale. The game’s world could be significantly larger, with larger towns and cities as Todd Howard indicated atBrighton Digital 2020. The game could have larger battles that put the Stormcloaks’ miniscule raids to shame. It could even see players take their first steps away from Tamriel, venturing to other continents like Yokuda or Akavir.
Increasing the scale ofThe Elder Scrolls 6’s map, key hubs, and battles is a priority for many fans. There’s hope inBethesda upgrading its enginethat the upcoming game could potentially push the technological limits of the open-world RPG genre. There’s also one less technologically taxing change, however, which needs to be brought toThe Elder Scrolls 6. It isn’t a matter of the game’s engine, rather one of time, and it’s a change which would add significant depth to the game’s world without overprescribing the player’s experience.
The Elder Scrolls 6needs far more dialogue which specifically acknowledges the player, their accomplishments, their titles, and their race.The Elder Scrollsformula has always prioritized freedom when it comes to roleplaying. Unlikeseries likeMass Effect, players can choose to completely forego the main story in mostElder Scrollsgames, and their player character is given so little backstory that it’s up to them to imagine who that character might be.
Reactivity And Identity For the Player’s Character
InSkyrim, that lack of prescriptive input on the side of the developers is also reflected in a lack of reactivity in the world. Just because the player can choose to be whoever they want doesn’t mean that NPCs shouldn’t also react to who they have become in the world. To use examples fromSkyrim, there’s no reason beyond time constraints that non-Nord players should walk intoWindhelmand be asked if they’re “one of those Skyrim for the Nords types.”
Argonianand Dunmer players should receive significantly different receptions in Windhelm’s Dunmeri Gray Quarter than the city’s Argonian-populated docks. Khajiit players should not have to wonder why they are the only one of their kind able to walk freely intoSkyrim’s cities, an inconsistency which just a few lines of dialogue could clear up. By seeding more situational dialogue throughout the world,The Elder Scrolls 6would make that world feel far more reactive, helping alleviate some of the roleplaying burdens which, inSkyrim, fall too heavily on the player.
Playing throughThe Elder Scrolls 6as a non-human does not need to completely transform the game or cause big changes to any major questline.TheElder Scrollsgamesalready rely so much on the imagination of their players when it comes to bringing their blank-slate protagonists to life. By adding several acknowledgements of the player’s race and identity to each major questline, a seemingly small addition to the game would help theElder Scrollsseries create a next-gen sense of immersion.
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Actions And Reactions to the Player
Reactivity shouldn’t just apply to the player’s identity, but also their actions. It’s absurd, for example, that the player can become both the leader ofSkyrim’s Dark Brotherhoodchapter and the Riften Thieves Guild, without being able to mention that in either questline or have the game acknowledge it in any significant way. Finding opportunities for small situational acknowledgements of the player’s actions would go a long way, and could be done without making big changes to questlines.
If the player is already the head ofthe Thieves Guild, and then completes the first Dark Brotherhood quest and is kidnapped by Astrid, then Astrid should be given an extra line of dialogue to acknowledge this unique position. She might comment, for example, that the Thieves Guild must be going through even worse times than she thought for their leader to be taking petty hit contracts. If there was an extra line acknowledging every major joinable faction inSkyrim, Astrid would only theoretically need under 10 extra lines. Even if the Dark Brotherhood questline was completely unaltered from there, it would make the world feel far more responsive.
It remains to be seen how Bethesda will attempt to one-upSkyriminThe Elder Scrolls 6. Including more varied reactive dialogue would make the world feel far richer without actually having to create the sort of character-driven stories which the franchise’s nameless protagonists aren’t strong enough to drive. Adding more reactive dialogue would make the world more immersive without stepping on the freedom that has characterized the RPG series so far.
TheElder Scrollsgames have often capitalized on the idea that their worlds allow the player to be whoever they want. However, that promise will never feel truly realized untilThe Elder Scrolls 6lets players be whoever they want, and then reacts to whoever they are or have become.The Elder Scrolls 6doesn’t need to be bigger than its predecessor to step out ofSkyrim’s huge shadow. Instead,Bethesdaneeds to create a world which feels far more interconnected, increasing its depth without compromising on the level of freedom which brought the series to the forefront of the RPG genre.
The Elder Scrolls 6is in development.
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