THE ELDER SCROLLS 6 SERIES

Ultimately, the Xbox team is wise to seemingly treat The Elder Scrolls 6 as an Xbox exclusive. Furthermore, the upcoming release of Starfieldcould give Bethesda a much better indication of which way the winds are blowing and what kind of game The Elder Scrolls 6 needs to be. That could mean that those gamers who are currently considering the PS5 to be their “must-have” next-gen console may be in a better position to buy an Xbox platform by the time the game comes out.

THE ELDER SCROLLS 6 SERIES

One interesting way time could be on The Elder Scrolls 6‘s side, though, is when you consider that the Xbox Series X/S may not only be easier to buy by the time that game is released but may also be cheaper than the consoles are now. The Elder Scrolls 6 isn’t immune from the negative effects of time and potential overhype. That level of hype and expectations previously made Valve wary to seriously pursue Half-Life 3, and it’s also arguably making any serious conversation about the expectations for GTA 6 a bit more complicated. There’s also something to be said for the fact that Skyrim has remained in the public consciousness for so long that its success may actually be something of a detriment. Whatever success we could have assumed The Elder Scrolls 6 may have enjoyed if it was released in 2016 (the same time gap between Oblivion and Skyrim‘s releases) can’t easily be applied to 2024 (or beyond). Skyrim‘s success is so far removed from the success of the rest of the franchise (considerable as that success may be) that you almost have to treat Skyrim as its own thing from a mass-market perspective rather than another entry into the Elder Scrolls franchise. That’s part of the problem with assuming that the Elder Scrolls 6 is essentially guaranteed to enjoy something close to Skyrim‘s success or that it will continue the trend of each major new Elder Scrolls game outselling the previous major entry in the franchise. Skyrim benefited from a combination of perfect timing and great design in such a way that helped the title essentially rise above the Elder Scrolls name itself. The Elder Scrolls franchise is indeed popular and successful, but the success of Skyrim is very much its own thing. In fact, reports suggest that Skryim may have doubled the combined lifetime sales of the rest of the games in the Elder Scrolls franchise.

So while it seems like each major entry into The Elder Scrolls franchise has surpassed the previous entry in terms of sales, it’s very important to note that the gap between Skyrim‘s sales and the sales of every other entry in the franchise is substantial. Mind you, that report was published less than a month after Skyrim‘s release. However, a 2011 report from the NPD suggested that Skryim was only “half a million” units shy of matching Oblivion‘s lifetime sales figures. While we don’t know the exact lifetime sales figures for every entry in the Elder Scrolls franchise to date, we do know that Oblivion was the series’ best-selling title before the release of Skyrim. What about the rest of the Elder Scrolls series, though? Well, that’s where the conversation gets tricky. In 2016, Todd Howard confirmed that Skyrim had sold over 30 million units until that point, and that number has obviously only gone up since then thanks to recent re-releases and the title’s consistent popularity. It’s impossible to deny that Skyrim is one of the most successful games of all time.

The elder scrolls 6