Nearly eight years after Bethesda first teased it at E3 2018, The Elder Scrolls VI may finally be about to get a proper name. According to a report by Tom Warren in The Verge’s Notepad newsletter, the game will be officially titled The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel, and Bethesda could confirm that as soon as November.
Warren cites sources familiar with the publisher’s plans. Neither Bethesda nor Microsoft has confirmed the name, so for now this remains a report rather than an announcement.
A reveal timed around Skyrim’s birthday
The Verge says the announcement could land around the 15th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which launched in November 2011. Warren is clear about what to expect, though: he writes that he is only anticipating the name next month “and nothing more”, so anyone hoping for a full trailer or a release date may be left waiting a while longer.
According to the same report, Bethesda has been showing Sentinel gameplay behind closed doors in recent months. That lines up with a post from Xbox chief Asha Sharma back in August, when she described seeing a live playthrough of the game and hid its subtitle behind eight asterisks. Sentinel, as fans were quick to point out, has eight letters.
Hammerfell and the scrolls themselves
Warren also flagged some light spoilers. His sources say Sentinel is set in Hammerfell, the desert province of the Redguards that players have previously explored in the 1998 spin off The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard and in The Elder Scrolls Online. Story wise, the game is said to be the first in the series built around the history of the Elder Scrolls, the ancient artefacts that give the franchise its name, with players working to uncover their secrets.
The setting would match a long running fan theory. As VGC notes, many players have speculated about the Iliac Bay region, which sits between High Rock and Hammerfell, and Sentinel is also the name of a city and region within Hammerfell. Former Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith recently said he hoped that theory was right, because a coastal setting could open the door to seafaring.
A quiet few years for Bethesda’s biggest RPG
Bethesda has said very little about the project since that 2018 teaser. Earlier this year, Kotaku points out, Todd Howard declined to say which platforms the game would appear on, and Bethesda staff voiced concern about how the wave of Xbox layoffs could affect its development.
Skyrim still earns its place in our list of the best PC games of all time, so expectations for its successor could hardly be higher. If The Verge’s sources are right, the wait for at least a name is now measured in weeks rather than years. We will update when Bethesda makes it official.
