As Bethesda continues to operate as we are inching just a week away from the next console generation to arrive with Xbox Series X|S, the questions still continue to conjure what is next from the firm. And while fans do have their own theories, the most concrete forecast for now is Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI. Yes, while there is Deathloop and GhostWire: Tokyo, those projects are only published by Bethesda and not developed in-house.

The two very ambitious, next-generation titles while holding fans anticipation hostage is still left with very little detail to articulate around. And that is primarily due to Todd Howard at the helm believing the two are not ready to be fully unveiled. Both when revealed back at E3 2018 were given short cinematic trailers only illustrating the understanding of the games’ settings.

Now well over two years later, fans are still conjuring in their minds what exactly these titles will be. In a recent interview as part of the Develop:Brighton Digital 2020 virtual event, Todd Howard disclosed the Starfield, at least, is still quite a while away. He goes on to elaborate the reasoning to share why tease the game so early on.

The reason we announced that stuff is we’re – at the time doing [Fallout] 76 and a Elder Scrolls [Blades] mobile game and we wanted to make sure our fans knew; hear the things coming up. We knew at the time these things are going to be a ways off, but it still felt better to engage and say “here’s what we’re making.” Look, it’s going to be a while till people hear about it and really really see it – and I could debate that.

So a lot of us say we should just start showing stuff, but then you worry about showing some things and then people get really excited then they’re like the next question is “when’s it coming out?”, you’re like “well, just wait” or then it gets delayed or you know etcetera etcetera and we like to as much as possible when we show it really be able to show what the final product feels like, looks like, and we’re closer to release so that we’re 100 percent confident – here it is, here’s what it does and here’s when you can play it.

Framed from how Howard spoke on the coming future for Starfield, Betehsda Game Studios is still working on what works best to reflect how the game will be presented in resemblance to the retail release of the game. In contrast to The Elder Scrolls VI, the game appears to at least be closer than the project years of waiting for the title as told by Bethesda’s Pete Hines back in May. Howard does verify that the two will be readied for Xbox Game Pass at launch.

In the same discussion, Howard also reiterated on the engine update for the proprietary engine used for Bethesda titles moving forwards. In the original interview, Howard described the advancement of the update to be the “largest engine overhaul since Oblivion.” You can read the full report by heading here.

What are you more excited for from Bethesda?