The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim first released in 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, and it became one of the most successful games of the generation. Bethesda subsequently released new versions of the game for everything from Nintendo Switch to PlayStation VR and even Amazon Alexa, and it doesn’t sound like the ports will stop anytime soon.
Speaking to Geoff Keighley at Gamelab in Barcelona, Skyrim director Todd Howard said that the average player-count per month in the game continues to be in the millions, and Bethesda has no plans to stop finding new platforms for it.
“That’s why we keep releasing it,” Howard added. “If you want us to stop releasing it, stop buying it.”
Skyrim has seen visual enhancements on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, virtual reality on PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift, and Nintendo-specific bonuses on Switch, but there hasn’t been a substantial content addition in years. Instead, players have had to turn to The Elder Scrolls Online for that fix, or play through the more recent Fallout 4. In November, the online Fallout 76 will also be available.
Of course, Howard’s comments don’t mean Bethesda Game Studios has any plans to abandon future Elder Scrolls titles. At E3 in June, the company “revealed” The Elder Scrolls VI with a logo and little else, and Howard said it will be the game his team works on after it completes Starfield, which was also just announced last month. This likely puts a new Elder Scrolls game at least four or five years away, and it will almost certainly launch on the next generation of consoles instead of the ones we have now.
If you need a new Elder Scrolls experience and don’t feel like playing Skyrim for the 50th time, The Elder Scrolls: Blades will be out later this year. A free-to-play game on iOS and Android and planned for more platforms — including virtual reality — it’s a first-person role-playing game with cross-platform support, and on phones, it can even be played in portrait mode. In addition to story content and multiplayer, Blades includes the “Abyss” challenge, a never-ending dungeon that pits players against increasingly dangerous enemies.
