Say hello to the sandy scroll screengrab for the foreseeable future
Praise Talos and whatever other Elder Scrolls deities you might worship. We here at RPS and in the wider gaming press finally have new material to draw on when hunting for images to symbolise The Elder Scrolls 6. No more will we be limited to that shot of some hills from the 2018 teaser, because Bethesda have shown off an elder scroll covered in sand while revealing the new game’s subtitle and all but locking in a setting. As a recent report from The Verge claimed, it’s called The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel and looks to be set in Hammerfell.
These details were revealed in a short teaser at the end of a Todd Howard-fronted video celebrating Bethesda Game Studios’ 40th anniversary. As such, the majority of the video is the Toddinator recapping the studio’s history by touching on each of the games they’ve put out since 1986’s Gridiron. Then, he looks to the future. “You know, everybody’s always asking about Elder Scrolls 6,” the Toddfather said. “And we thought, hey, given the moment, what a perfect time to tell you what The Elder Scrolls 6 is actually called.”
Cue a shot of an elder scroll buried in sand, followed by the The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel in fancy logo font. Then, a quote attributed to a moth priest called Autor. “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.” OOH, CRYPTIC. In all seriousness, between the subtitle, the sand, and Autor being referred to as a moth priest in service of High Queen Iradne of Hammerfell, the Verge report’s assertion that the game will be set in Hammerfell is essentially set in stone by this teaser even if his Toddliness didn’t spell it out himself.
Sentinel is the name of both a kingdom and a city in the Redguards’ province. The inclusion of an Elder Scroll in the teaser and the quote from Autor also lend credence to the Verge report’s claim that the game will make a big deal out of unravelling secrets linked to the provenance of these mysterious bits of paper. As for the quote’s rambling about lost futures and undone victories, I’ll venture to speculate that it could turn out to be a reference to the player character thwarting a Thalmor victory, since Skyrim seemed to set up the elves as being on the verge of conquering Tamriel as the Cyrodillic empire fractured and fell.
That may or may not be the case, but we do know for sure that this teaser likely means a huge downturn in the use of the header image below. It’s eight years old, pulled from The Elder Scrolls 6’s infamous 2018 teaser. All these years on, the game’s finally on its way. You’ve served us well, screengrab of some hills. Talos guide you to wherever less regularly used images go.
Image credit: Bethesda
Elder Scrolls teasing aside, it’s worth bearing in mind that Bethesda’s parent company Microsoft have spent the majority of this year gutting their workforce with mass layoffs and studio ditching. Microsoft are also still currently subject to a BDS movement boycott over their reported ties to the Israeli military.
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