14 years ago we published our Elder Scrolls 6 wishlist, and honestly? It still holds up

We’ve been going back through the PC Gamer vault looking for stories to revisit, reassess, or just have an honest “weren’t we naive?” chuckle about, and few have ticked all three boxes as much as our February 2012 “Armchair Designer” column, “Ten things we want to see in Elder Scrolls 6.”

It was a scant three months after the launch of Skyrim, and little did we know that we’d be waiting on TES 6 in the future year 2026, seven years after the setting of Blade Runner, and just one before Deus Ex: Human Revolution (also released in 2011).

By the way, I say “we,” but I was still in high school when this article ran, and the unattributed author is likely no longer a member of our team⁠—though we do have plenty of decade-plus veterans on both sides of the Atlantic. I’ve shared images of the original article at the bottom of this story, but here’s a summary of the wishlist:

A 200+ year time skip, returning to the Iliac Bay region of Daggerfall. 2:1 oddsDepart Tamriel entirely in favor of the oft-mentioned continent of Akavir. 50:1 oddsReturn to Morrowind’s sensibility for NPC permadeath and reactivity. 100:1 oddsMaintain, but do not expand map size while adding a greater variety of world-altering systems like Oblivion Gates or Dragon battles. 10:1 oddsExpand companions and followers to something resembling the vaunted BioWare party. 18:1 oddsDesign larger-scale encounters with squad tactics systems. 14:1 oddsRevamp stealth detection in favor of full-on immersive sim light and sound propagation. 14:1 oddsIntroduce Daedric pact magic a la D&D Warlocks, with permanent consequences. 70:1 oddsRevamp movement in a Dishonored (they didn’t have that yet, but still) or Mirror’s Edge direction. 150:1 oddsIntroduce some kind of social-but-not-social media, blog/sharing mechanic. 4:1 odds

You crazy for that last one, anonymous PCG writer of yesteryear. Obviously some grace for them, though: It was a gentler time, years before platforms had fully consumed the internet. But the proposition does rhyme with the social sharing elements that have taken games by storm, like photomode. And the rest of the ideas? All pretty great, I think. A few have even come to fruition in Bethesda’s other games.

BioWare-style companions? We got those in Fallout 4 and Starfield. The squad tactics not so much, but Bethesda has experimented with tacking on systems that feel like entirely new games, such as Fallout 4’s settlement building and management. Also, shout out to reader jongreenall’s submission of “SPACE.” With Starfield, you kinda could argue we got Elder Scrolls in space.

As for my own favorites, Morrowind-style malleability would make me one happy camper, as would deeper stealth systems. Bethesda design director Emil Pagliarulo seems to have imported a lot of Bethesda’s signature stealth gameplay from his formative time as a designer at the stealth GOAT, Looking Glass Studios.

I’d love to see the next step in that evolution. But we’ve also got 14 years of Bethesda not moving in either of those directions: Fallout 4 and Starfield both had essential NPCs and the crouch walky stealth we know and love.

The Akavir one was honestly the biggest curveball for me, but I really dig it as a potential shakeup. You could return to the very Dune-like approach to colonialism in genre fiction we saw in Morrowind. After a juicy timeskip post-Skyirim, pop us on the shores of a Thalmor or Imperial (or both) colonial project in Akavir, with contrasting architectures, populations, maybe even laws based on the zone of control⁠.

Make elf on non-elf crime essentially legal in Thalmor zones, or close off native Ka Po’ Tun settlements to Tamrielic characters until they get enough faction reputation. Maybe the Imperial presence is a rump state, all that’s left from Thalmor domination of the mainland. Have the Stormcloaks vs. Imperials equivalent for TES 6 be siding with the East East Empire Company, Thalmor, or native Akaviri like the Tsaesci and Tang Mo.

Basically, I want Pillars of Eternity 2 but in The Elder Scrolls. You’d still get that sweet hit of TES heartland nostalgia with the classic races and factions present, while the move would seriously shake up what risks becoming a stagnant fiction otherwise. A fella can dream, eh?

FutureFuture

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