Although it’s still a ways off - potentially 4-5 years - I am incredibly excited about the prospect of getting to play the next main entry in the Elder Scrolls series.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim introduced me to open-world gaming. I believe Bethesda did such a good job with this game that its impact can still be felt today, having influenced a sheer amount of games, from AAA tentpoles to smaller indie titles. I would even bring the argument forth that Skyrim greatly contributed to the general shift toward AAA open-world games that started with the Xbox One and PS4 generation and is in full swing currently. It’s interesting to note that even as of today, The Elder Scrolls is a series without equal. Sure, games like Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Witcher 3, the modern Assassin’s Creed trilogy, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima all boast beautiful open worlds, but the amount of gameplay freedom you encounter in The Elder Scrolls is still unmatched.
So, this begs the question: Where will the series go next? Which areas are likely targets for innovation? I like to think of The Elder Scrolls VI as another hugely impactful game that will drive game development of future games. How will the game set itself apart from the industry darlings that came before it and its contemporary rivals?
Two areas I can see innovation taking place are:
NPC behavior
Procedurally generated open world
Feel free to speculate away in here! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
This could also have notes about Creation Engine 2. A lot gets covered there too. A few videos floating about it from BGS themselves on the topic and how it could help and improve gameplay experience.
From what I’ve read BGS do use procedural generation in making the game world as a means of getting a blank canvass landscape, and then sculpt it from there until they are happy with it.
I don’t know if the world being procedurally generated on the user-end makes sense for a game like this, though. That works better with games where you are going to keep going back in for runs in a limited level structure. If I’m going to be playing in one world for months, I’d kind of want that world to be carefully designed and curated to offer the optimal experience. Beyond this, Tamriel is world they are building out map by map, I feel like it would kind of betray that vision to have an area of the map with a permanent question mark over it because everyone got a different layout.
The obvious area Elder Scrolls needs improvement in is the core control systems – combat, and traversal mechanics. It’s very dated in that respect. I’d like for them to really put a lot of effort into overhauling how the system works so combat is fun in its own right and not just something clunky you need to do every now and then, and there are more options for traversing that feel good to use.
