Todd Howard Explains Why Bethesda Avoids Early Reveals, But The Elder Scrolls 6 Doesn’t Count

At this point, it is more than a meme that The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced so long ago and yet it’s still not in the hands of its expectant fans. Announced in June 2018, the highly anticipated next entry to the Elder Scrolls series has now been lapped by Fallout 76, Starfield, and multiple updates and expansions to both of those titles, all while it remains in the background, still without so much as a broad release window. However, announcing major projects as early as Bethesda revealed The Elder Scrolls 6 isn’t actually what the studio prefers, especially now that it has had some time to test the waters of modern connection, where the internet and social media are now universal languages.

GameRant recently visited Bethesda’s main studio in Maryland, where we attended a hands-off preview of Starfield‘s upcoming Free Lanes update and Terran Armada DLC, as well as a taste of the future of Fallout 76. Following the presentation, executive producer Todd Howard engaged in a group Q&A session, answering questions about the studio’s biggest franchises and its ongoing work on The Elder Scrolls 6. During the exchange, Howard explained why the studio prefers not to announce things too early, and it ultimately comes down to what it does to fans rather than any pressure it puts on a game’s development.

Bethesda Knows Early Reveals Make Fans Anxious

In the end, that approach makes The Elder Scrolls 6 feel like the exception that ultimately proves the rule. While Bethesda has increasingly leaned toward shorter windows between reveal and release, its 2018 teaser for The Elder Scrolls 6 stands out as one of the longest gaps in modern AAA development. Howard acknowledged that disconnect with a bit of humor, even as he laid out how the studio typically handles its announcements:

“I don’t want to count Elder Scrolls 6. I know it counts, but I would like to not count it. Starfield was long. Other than that, they’re usually pretty short. Skyrim was under a year, just about a year. Fallout 4 was pretty close, Oblivion Remastered was smack.”

Even apart from The Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda’s timeline hasn’t always been what Howard suggests the studio wants it to be. Starfield, for instance, was initially announced in 2018 but wasn’t released until 2023. However, the executive producer also spoke about it as a unique case rather than a new standard. Its extended development cycle came during a period of major transition for the studio, and those circumstances actually reinforced Bethesda’s preference for tighter reveal strategies moving forward:

“Starfield was unique in its length of time for a lot of good and bad reasons—new IP, pandemic, company change. I think we’re seeing that growth, it’s slow for us to be honest compared to maybe the rest of the industry. We still want to be who we are, making a game. We have longer pre-productions with smaller teams, and we also have that benefit of having so many millions of people playing the other games that we’re actually trying to figure out how to serve that audience while making a new one. So, when we’re making a new one, we really want to get a good kernel of the game that we’re ready to put more people on and be moving faster.”

Bethesda Doesn’t Want to Let Fans Down

But this is all actually less about development logistics and more about how players actually experience a game reveal. In an era where speculation spreads like wildfire and expectations can spiral out of control within hours, announcing a game too early risks letting the audience build a version of it in their heads that may never align with reality. Bethesda, as Howard explained, is increasingly aware of how quickly that gap can turn into frustration, and they’d like to avoid that as much as possible.

Things become even more complicated when details start to leak or circulate without any context. Without a clear picture of what a project actually is, players begin filling in the blanks themselves, or they form assumptions that lead to disappointment when expectations aren’t met. The recent Fallout 3 remaster shadow drop “fiasco” is a great example of this, as players thought it would be announced and released at a certain time, only for it to turn out untrue—and it all started with leaks and rumors. According to Howard, that loss of control over the narrative generally does nothing but create unnecessary pressure and confusion before a game is even ready to be properly shown:

“You never know how the audience is going to react. It’s also why speaking to, sort of talking about games that we compressed the time to announce to release. That’s also why leaks don’t help us. Excuse me, they never help us, to be clear. You’re getting sort of misinformation on what it is, and so the audience can get a little anxious. That was a game, in particular, with Oblivion, where if you hear we’re remastering it, the game you have in your head, everyone’s going to have a different version of what that is. And I think it creates some player anxiety for our players, and so we wanted that time from “here’s what it is” to “you can touch it” to be zero. And it was incredibly successful.”

Howard’s comments suggest Bethesda is trying to be more intentional about how and when it shows its work, especially after seeing how quickly expectations can take on a life of their own. The longer a game exists only as an idea, the more space there is for players to imagine what it should be, and that version is almost never identical to what the developers are actually building. By shortening that gap, Bethesda is able to eventually show off something that is more concrete, something that paints a much clearer picture of what players will be getting. It’s also why Howard previously confirmed his perspective on remasters and shadow drops has changed, as Oblivion Remastered was successful due to no gap between reveal and release.

That approach also speaks to a big priority for the studio: delivering a game that feels right in players’ hands, rather than one that simply lives up to years of speculation. While The Elder Scrolls 6 may always be a reminder of what happens when that window is too wide, Bethesda’s current philosophy suggests a desire to avoid that situation moving forward. In the end, it’s really less about managing hype and more about making sure players are getting to meet the real game, not the version they imagined years before it was ready.