The Scrolls Reveal To Us The Date Still Unknown…
I feel like Bethesda has personally challenged us. Dave Humphrey, our owner, founder, and all around cool guy, mentioned that some developers at Zenimax jokingly said to him that they were worried we might be able to announce the game ahead of them, and what the game would be about. All we’d have to do is check to see what pages they visit on our site, and we’d be able to make a very educated guess. As it turns out, we just didn’t think of trying to do that, although we definitely should set up a system for this, now that it’s been pointed out to us by the developers that we should be able to do this. We’ll see about getting a system that allows us to tell what the developers are looking up in advance, for the benefit of everyone.
I don’t want access to this information so we can spoil the announcement, mind you. I want this information for the developer’s sake. If we see that they’re studiously looking up, say, information about relations between the Bosmer and Khajiit, then we can quietly make updating information relating to those topics a priority. It’d be a silent and sneaky way to help the dev team out. We’d also benefit of course, beyond the simple joy of being able to call it well in advance. We’d be able to improve areas of the site that will get more traffic, well in advance to the need. So the developers get better information, the players get a more complete resource on launch day, and we’d be rushing less during an announcement. Everyone’s a winner!
So when is the next game coming out, then? To answer that, it’s November 9th, 2017. My reasoning for that, after the break.
Why November 9th, 2017?
Well, it’s a guess, anyway. The reasoning works like this. There was about a five year gap between Oblivion and Skyrim. Fallout 4 comes out November 10, 2015. They’re not going to release Elder Scrolls: The Next One up against Fallout 4, so they don’t cut into their own profits, that’s just common sense. Additionally, we can also look at the support periods for each game to give us an idea of how long Fallout 4 will receive expansions, as Bethesda probably won’t release ESVI until after that period has passed. Morrowind had 399 days between its release and Bloodmoon, Oblivion had 372 days between initial release and Shivering Isles, and Skyrim had 390 days between it coming out and Dragonborn being made available to the public. Additionally, we also know that Fallout 3 had 280 days between its release and its final expansion, which suggests Fallout 3 will follow the same trend, at least slightly. While it was made by a different developer, Fallout: New Vegas followed this same cycle, it had 337 days between its initial release and final expansion.
To expand on this, let’s check some other games. Mass Effect 3 came out on March 6th, 2012. It’s final single player expansion came out April 2nd, 2013, a 393 day gap. Sleeping Dogs had 211 days between release and final expansion. Dark Souls II had 332 days between its release and Scholar of the First Sin. Batman: Arkham City had a 225 day span. Everything I tested seem to fit the general time frame I guessed at, about two-thirds to under two years. Note I mainly looked at single player games, multiplayer games I looked at seemed to have much longer life spans. It seems that about a year is the range for continued work on a AAA game industry title. So as an added bonus, we can tell that the next Elder Scrolls game will have just about a year’s worth of official content made for it after release. Which is neat! Furthermore, if Fallout 4 follows this trend, it will get about a year as well. From this, we can tell that the next ES game will not likely be announced until after the start of 2017. Assuming that any work is going into the next ES game, that will mean we won’t see it at least 2017, at the earliest.
So Why November 9th?
No good reason? Well, there isn’t one, as far as I know. Skyrim came out November 11th, 2011. Fallout 4 is set to come out November 10th, 2015. So, keeping with that pattern there, Elder Scrolls VI: Hammerfell will be released on November 9th, 2017. My exact prediction is another Bethesda E3 Showcase in 2017, just like the one for Fallout 4, with the game being just a few months behind it. And now that I have said this, this will no longer happen. I’m sorry, but now the game can’t come out until at least 2018.
I really hope I’m right here. I can’t imagine three more years with no main ES game in my life. But I think that should be about right, I could be off, of course, but I really feel like this is right. Bonus points if it’s Hammerfell. Also, as a note, if you run into this post after November 9th, 2017, and you do not have a new Elder Scrolls game in your life, then please feel free to shove it into my face as much as you want. I know I’ll be reminding everyone I get it right, might as well extend you the same courtesy.
