One of the things that many gamers hate about developers and publishers is that they sometimes have a bad habit of announcing a game that will be a big hit when it comes out, but it won’t come out for many, MANY, years to come. The irony is that it’s not a single developer or publisher that does this, many of them do it, and it ticks off fans the moment it happens. For example, Bethesda, a developer known for being good to fans, announced Elder Scrolls 6 many years ago, and many years later, the game is still not out.
At first, you could wave this off because the world they would be creating would be massive and need to be coded, tested, etc. But as the years went on, and Bethesda didn’t further commit to anything like a release window or date, the more fans got frustrated. At the FTC hearing about the potential Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Xbox head Phil Spencer was asked about the game, and he gave an answer, as noted by IGN, that will frustrate fans even more:
“It’s many years away, but it’s a game we have announced we would begin working on. I think we’ve been a little unclear on what platforms it will launch on given how far out the game is. It’s difficult for us right now to nail down exactly what platforms that game will launch on.”
He continued to harp on the “difficulty to understand” points in terms of when it would launch and what it would launch on before stating:
“So we’re talking about it being likely five-plus years away.”
That is not the answer fans wanted, and yet, in a way, it was the answer that they expected. Bethesda does have a history of either making you wait for games or dropping titles you didn’t expect sooner than you expected them.
The reason that Spencer was likely skittish about the release consoles wasn’t just because of timing but because the entire FTC hearing is about Xbox potentially hoarding franchises for themselves so that they can grow. That’s not bad in principle, but the question is about them keeping ones that were on several platforms in the past, like with Bethesda’s big franchise.
We do apologize to those who wanted better tidings for Elder Scrolls 6. We won’t give you hope about a future announcement, either. So, for now, the best thing to say is likely, “Go back to Skyrim and enjoy that.”
