It has been a long time sinceThe Elder Scrolls 6was announced at E3 2018, and fans of the franchise have been waiting for details about the upcoming game’s setting and story for years to no avail. After the events ofSkyrimthere are some huge questions about how the franchise will move forward.
The Elder Scrolls 6faces some huge storytelling challenges. Picking a side inSkyrim’s Civil War was one of the key decisions players made in the lastElder Scrollsgame, and it remains unclear howThe Elder Scrolls 6will deal with the radically different implications the outcome of that war could have for the future of Tamriel. Here’s whySkyrim’s Civil War makesThe Elder Scrolls 6’s tall order even more challenging, and some of the ways Bethesda may attempt to tackle the problem.
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The Civil War Challenge
Dealing with the consequences ofSkyrim’s Civil War presents a big problem forThe Elder Scrolls 6. No matter where in Tamriel the next game is set, it would seem absurd for the impact ofSkyrim’s Civil War on the overall balance of power on the continent not to be felt. If theStormcloakswon, for example, the Empire would have lost another province and would likely be unable to survive the growing power of the Aldmeri Dominion for much longer. If Skyrim remained part of the Empire, it could remain strong enough to survive for some time.
MostElder Scrollsgames are able to avoid mentioning the decisions presented to players in previous games. Whether or notOblivion’sHero of Kvatchever completed the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild questlines, for example, makes sense as something that might be left out of most history books. The fate of an entire province, however, would be far more difficult to simply avoid bringing up in the next game. It would be especially jarring if the Nords ofThe Elder Scrolls 6seemed unaware of whether or not their homeland was a part of the Empire. There are several different ways Bethesda could approach this challenge.
Time And Setting
There are a few ways thatThe Elder Scrolls 6could get around the problem presented bySkyrim’s Civil War. It is possible thatThe Elder Scrolls 6will not be set in Tamrielat all, which would allow the storytellers to get away with avoiding the question far more easily. The next game could be set somewhere on one of the many unvisited continents of Nirn, such as Akavir or the lost continent of Yokuda.
There’s another way Bethesda could overcome the problem without directly stating who won the war.Skyrimtook place 200 years afterOblivion, the biggest time jump between main games in the franchise seen so far. This allowed for events like the war between the Dominion and the Empire, theArgonian invasion of Morrowind, and the destruction of Vvardenfell to all happen between games.
IfThe Elder Scrolls 6was set several centuries afterSkyrim, it is possible that the Empire could have dissolved under Dominion pressure regardless of the Civil War’s outcome.Ulfric Stormcloakmight be considered a hero of an independentSkyrimregardless of whether or not his rebellion succeeded at the time, and the timeline in which the Empire defeated the Stormcloaks could still see Skyrim an independent country by the timeThe Elder Scrolls 6is set.
In fact, it’s hard to imagine the Empire of Tamriel surviving long after the events ofSkyrimanyway. Between the war withthe Aldmeri Dominion,Skyrim’s Civil War, the loss of Hammerfell as an Imperial province among other key locations, and the assassination of Emperor Titus Mede the Second by the Dark Brotherhood the Empire may be on the verge of collapse whether it held onto Skyrim or not.
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Dragon Breaks And The Future Of TES
In the pastElder Scrollsgames have explained some of the potential differences between different playthroughs using an in-universe concept known asDragon Breaks. A Dragon Break is a temporal phenomena in which different events are said to occur concurrently before the timeline reconvenes. Even contradictory events can both be the truth once the Dragon Break resolves.
While this might work to brush some of the smaller decisions players have made in past games aside, it’s difficult to see how this could be satisfyingly applied in the case ofSkyrim’s Civil War. A Dragon Break on that scale would would renderSkyriman unknowable land of contradictions ruled both by the Empire and the Stormcloaks. While Bethesda has the Dragon Break concept at its disposal, as a solution it could be just as unsatisfying as the studio simply declaring one choice canon, if not more so.
Ultimately settingThe Elder Scrolls 6after the fall of Empire of Tamriel could be the simplest solution. The main risk would be that it would undermine the choice to fight forthe Empire inSkyrim, but at the very least it doesn’t actually contradict the possibility of an Imperial victory in the lore.
Many fans have speculated that the next game will be set inHammerfell. BetweenOblivionandSkyrim, Hammerfell was released as an Imperial province when many Redguards continued to fight with the Aldmeri Dominion after the end of the Great War. Hammerfell could be the perfect setting, therefore, for anElder Scrollsgame told in the wake of the Empire’s total collapse.
Skyrim’s Civil War is far from the only challenge facingThe Elder Scrolls 6. Living up toSkyrim’s legacy will be an immense task forBethesda, especially nearly ten years after the last game’s immensely successful launch. Many fans will be particularly interested to see howThe Elder Scrolls 6handles some ofSkyrim’s key choices like the Civil War, and will use that decision to judge whether their choices inThe Elder Scrolls 6will really matter going forward.
The Elder Scrolls 6is currently in development.
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