1 February 2026

Former Bethesda Dev Discusses How The Elder Scrolls 6’s Story Could Connect to Skyrim

By newsgame

Former Bethesda developer Bruce Nesmith has speculated on how the story for The Elder Scrolls 6 might connect to Skyrim. Nesmith was the design lead on Skyrim, but left Bethesda in 2021 before The Elder Scrolls 6 entered full development. However, he still has his opinions on how the game might handle its story.

Throughout Skyrim, gamers can complete various questlines involving different factions. Skyrim‘s main quest and Civil War are the most consequential for the game world, the latter allowing players to choose a side and pick who they want to lead Skyrim between the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloaks. While this has obvious effects on the immediate game world in Skyrim, it also has big implications for the series’ lore in the future. And with no sign of The Elder Scrolls 6, it remains unclear whether Bethesda intends to address the events of Skyrim in its next title.

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Speaking to Press Box PR, Nesmith was asked about how he thinks The Elder Scrolls 6 will address the endings of Skyrim and the result of the Civil War. “I don’t know but if I were to hazard a guess, and this is just purely a swag, I would say they will leave it undefined or leave it as neither side really won,” Nesmith said, explaining that he has a phrase called “put your toys away” in game development. This phrase means that “for certain levels of storyline, you want to reset things back the way they were so that you don’t make sweeping changes.” Those “sweeping changes” should be reserved for the “big grand stories,” according to Nesmith, as that makes the world more dynamic. However, as he explains, ” if I’m doing a thieves guild storyline, I usually want to put my toys away. I want to make sure that the next guy who has to do a thieves guild storyline isn’t highly limited or constrained by what I did.”

Giving his final thoughts on the matter, Nesmith said, “If I were to hazard a guess, I would say either just not deal with what happened in the civil war or leave it and say there was a civil war but it didn’t really come to a complete conclusion or some sort of détente, but that’s just my guess.”

I would say they will leave it undefined or leave it as neither side really won.

How relevant Skyrim‘s Civil War would be to The Elder Scrolls 6 remains up for debate, anyway. There has been no official indication on The Elder Scrolls 6‘s setting yet, although rumors suggest the game will take place in Hammerfell. Nesmith claims both Hammerfell and High Rock “would be great places to go,” but he does point out that “you don’t have an area that isn’t rich in potential in Tamriel.” It may be that The Elder Scrolls 6 is set somewhere where Bethesda can simply avoid addressing the Civil War at all.

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Nesmith’s interview covered a wide range of topics, including why he thinks a Morrowind remake wouldn’t stand the test of time. It’s interesting to hear from someone who worked at Bethesda on how the studio is handling things at the moment, and how it might approach the future. Naturally, as one of the most significant developers in the industry, Bethesda continues to attract a lot of attention, which has only been amplified by its radio silence on The Elder Scrolls 6. Later this year, it will officially be 15 years since Skyrim was released, a wait between mainline titles very few would have anticipated in 2011. As development rolls on, gamers can only hope that 2026 is the year when Bethesda finally decides to lift the curtain on the next game in the series.