As mentioned yesterday, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma effectively teased the subtitle of The Elder Scrolls VI by showing eight asterisks in her tweet. In my article , I listed some of the most likely candidates and ranked Sentinel first. Well, the Elder Scrolls community is now adamant that that's the one .
There's a couple of reasons for that. For starters, it turns out that Bethesda Game Studios had been sneakily teasing it for a very long time, even at the Starfield character creation screen. A user quickly discovered that the Employee Number listed on the screen was actually the same for everyone: 190514-2009140512. When divided into pairs and read as alphabet letters, it was revealed to be:
19 05 14 20 09 14 05 12 - S E N T I N E L
Beyond that, former Bethesda Game Studios employee Michael Kirkbride also confirmed in a Reddit post that The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel is the correct subtitle. Kirkbride has not worked at the studio for a long time, but he may well still have some connection inside.
The subtitle makes sense, given that the Hammerfell region has always been the main candidate for this game. It's not unprecedented for an Elder Scrolls game to be subtitled according to a specific city, as the second installment was named after Daggerfall , the Breton city in Glenumbra/High Rock.
Besides, it's arguably the single most historically loaded city in all of Hammerfell, and its story is essentially the story of the Redguards ' internal politics. Redguard society has long been split between two factions: the Crowns , descendants of the old Yokudan noble class (the Na-Totambu) who cling to traditional, hereditary rule and a more insular worldview, and the Forebears , descendants of the original warrior-wave settlers (the Ra Gada), who lean more mercantile, cosmopolitan, and open to outside trade and Imperial relations. Sentinel is explicitly a Forebear city , and its rise to prominence is what repeatedly ignited tension between the two factions throughout Hammerfell's history.
However, Hammerfell is notably the one place in Tamriel that fought off the Aldmeri Dominion on its own , after the Empire ceded it to the Thalmor in the White-Gold Concordat . That shared resistance also reconciled the old Crown/Forebear rivalry, forged when a Forebear army broke the Thalmor Dominion's siege of the Crown city of Hegathe . That gives The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel an obvious thematic hook without inventing anything new: a proudly self-reliant province that no longer fully trusts an Empire it doesn't need, potentially facing renewed Thalmor interest or fallout from Imperial weakness. And a century and a half of official peace doesn't mean every Crown or Forebear hardliner accepted the reconciliation, leaving plenty of room for splinter factions on either side for players to align with, oppose, or get pulled into, echoing the faction-driven structure of Skyrim's Stormcloaks and Imperials.
Speculation aside, it's obvious that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is pushing Bethesda to communicate more about the game , making it possible we might see something concrete before the end of the year, even if the latest rumors suggest the game could still be two years away from release.
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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