Breaking: It's official, the next Elder Scrolls is The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel

The wait for a name is over. Bethesda Game Studios has officially confirmed that the next Elder Scrolls game is called The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel. The studio shared the reveal on X this morning, asking fans, “did you guess correctly?” Plenty did. Last week we covered The Verge’s report that Sentinel was the name and that it would be revealed in November.

How it was revealed

The title came at the end of a video called Celebrating 40 Years of Bethesda Game Studios. As VGC reports, Todd Howard talks about looking back at the studio’s games, then says: “everybody’s always asking about Elder Scrolls 6. And we thought, hey, given the moment, what a perfect time to tell you what The Elder Scrolls 6 is actually called.”

The short teaser that follows shows sand shifting away from a buried scroll with a blue crystal on it, then the Sentinel logo. It closes on a quote, which Gematsu attributes to Yazar, Moth Priest to High Queen Iradne of Hammerfell (4E 206):

“The scroll offered only a shimmer, a veil thinly lifted to my eyes. A future lost. A victory undone. Sands of time scattered by fate.”

What we still don’t know

Pretty much everything else. There’s no gameplay, no platforms and no release date. The Xbox Wire post is just the logo. In a post quoted by Gematsu, Bethesda says development continues and “it’ll be some time before we’re ready to share more,” but that “it feels great to finally reveal the name and location.” The only place named in the teaser is Hammerfell.

The game was first announced in 2018, so this is the first official detail in more than eight years.

What’s reported, not confirmed

The Verge’s Tom Warren reports that Sentinel will be set in Hammerfell, the province seen in The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard and The Elder Scrolls Online, and that it will be the first game about the history of the Elder Scrolls themselves. Bethesda hasn’t confirmed either point beyond the teaser itself.

PPR take: Eight years for a title card, and I’ll be honest, I still got a little excited watching it. The teaser doesn’t give us much, but what it does show says a lot. Sand, a buried scroll and a quote from a Moth Priest to the High Queen of Hammerfell all line up with what The Verge reported, even if Bethesda isn’t spelling it out yet. I’m not going to read too much into one quote. What I will say is that “it’ll be some time” tells me not to expect a release date anytime soon, so I’m keeping my hopes in check. Still, after all this time, it’s nice to finally call it by its name. Sentinel. I like it.