Skyrim co-lead says Elder Scrolls 6 probably won’t be as freaky deaky as Morrowind as Todd Howard “gravitates not towards the weird stuff”

The Elder Scrolls series has become a lot less weird as the years have gone on with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim mostly being quite, well, normal. With The Elder Scrolls 6 now in a “quite playable” state, it may only be a few years before the next entry in the RPG series is actually our hands.

However, if you’re expecting more weirdness than past entries, Skyrim co-lead designer Kurt Kuhlmann believes that Bethesda lead Todd Howard simply won’t lean into the kookiness of past entries.

Speaking to Kiwi Talkz, via GamesRadar, Kuhlmann revealed that his return to Bethesda during the development of Oblivion made him notice how much of the series’ weirdness was being removed.

“I came back during the end of pre-production on Oblivion. I wasn’t the lead on Oblivion… the world-building on Oblivion was pretty much done when I started on it,” he said. “”I’m not, like, mad about it or anything,” he notes, but “If you look at [the pre-Oblivion in-game book] The Pocket Guide to the Empire… That was a much weirder place than what you see in Oblivion.”

While this has seen been retconned via lore, the Cyrodil described during Arena and Daggerfall was a conflicted jungle filled with different groups of species and a whole bunch of Imperial racism. By the time Bethesda turned the region into a game, it was more of a de-facto high fantasy setting, and that really worked for the time.

Kuhlmann explained that Oblivion’s development in the wake of The Lord of the Rings trilogy may have pushed it towards more generic high fantasy, but the fact is that Todd Howard simply isn’t all that into the weirdness found in the earliest Elder Scrolls games.

“I think Todd in particular gravitates not towards the weird stuff. I do,” the Skyrim co-lead explained. “Like, Morrowind… Michael and I had done a lot of brainstorming on that, and obviously, it’s got the Dune vibes, and the Dark Crystal vibes. I love that stuff. I would have definitely put more in [Oblivion] if I could have.”

Morrowind is by far the weirdest of the 3D Elder Scrolls games, largely due to its location, and that’s just one of the reasons why it’s still so beloved to this day. While the regions of Elsweyr and Black Marsh should also be extremely weird, Kuhlmann simply doesn’t think they will be if they’re part of The Elder Scrolls 6.

“I would be skeptical that they could do a game in Elsweyr or Black Marsh,” the Skyrim co-lead said.

Nevertheless, we’re still incredibly excited for the next entry in The Elder Scrolls series, even after the middling release of Starfield two years ago. While Zenimax’s Elder Scrolls Online and the recent Oblivion Remastered has kept me satiated for a while, I’m always hungry to explore more of Tamriel.

The Elder Scrolls VI

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  Platform(s):
  PC, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series X
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  Genre(s):
  Action, RPG