Out of the blue, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma tweeted that she'd just seen live gameplay of The Elder Scrolls VI (TES VI) at the Bethesda head office in Rockville, Maryland, and she (predictably) lavished praise upon it:
Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI: ******** this morning. The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater.
The Bethesda Game Studios X account replied in kind :
It was great being able to show you ********. Thank you for the kind words and a wonderful visit.
It's no secret that Phil Spencer 's successor wishes to accelerate the development of two of Bethesda's key franchises , The Elder Scrolls and Fallout , as they are among the biggest in Xbox's portfolio, and yet the making of new installments tends to be quite slow. Sharma's new strategy to rescue the Xbox division is, first and foremost, to cut those studios that didn't deliver commercially (such as Double Fine, Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, and Undead Labs) and refocus investment on big IPs like Bethesda's. Of course, fans were puzzled upon learning that even Bethesda itself was hit by layoffs , with the remaining staff reportedly worried that relying on cheaper external contractors would inevitably delay the game further .
Anyway, there are two additional quirks to this The Elder Scrolls VI story. One is that Sharma was greeted upon her arrival at the Bethesda office with a special protest staged by the Communication Workers of America (CWA) , which mounted a huge inflatable rat and as many flags in the ground as ZeniMax people were laid off.
The other is that hardcore fans of The Elder Scrolls VI are already trying to figure out the subtitle . Both tweets feature eight asterisks , so the assumption is that the subtitle will be eight letters long. Potential candidates given the long-rumored Hammerfell and/or High Rock regions featured in the game include:
- Sentinel - A major Hammerfell city and probably the strongest Hammerfell-specific title candidate.
- Redguard - The name of the race that inhabits Hammerfell, though it would reuse the name of the 1998 Elder Scrolls spin-off.
- Orsinium - The Orcish city with direct historical links to Hammerfell, High Rock, and the Skyrim border.
- Wrothgar - A large region in High Rock, located at the northeast corner of the Iliac Bay. The region is inhabited mostly by Orcs
- Balfiera - The island in Iliac Bay (which is part of the High Rock region) containing the Adamantine Tower.
Of course, it could be something else entirely. Without a doubt, though, Sharma wants to speed up communication on TES VI, as shown recently with the updated Bethesda roadmap. Might we get a new trailer later this year, perhaps at Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards (recently confirmed for December 10 )? Only time will tell.
About the author : With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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