Todd Howard joins Geoff Keighly to discuss Bethesda’s upcoming projects and reveals that Starfield is currently in a playable state, though Elder Scrolls 6 is not.
Over the last few years, Bethesda has established a tradition of showing up at E3 with just a few games that will all be released within the next 12 months. The company broke that ritual at E3 2018 and surprised fans with two teasers at the end of its press conference. Both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 were confirmed, but few other details were included in the teasers.
Although the trailers themselves didn’t share much intel aside from titles, Todd Howard has been doing the interview circuit and shared a few small additional details. In a chat with Geoff Keighly, Howard explained that Starfield is actually already in a playable state, though The Elder Scrolls 6 is not.
Howard explained that, as rumored, Starfield has been in development for a very long time. The team trademarked the IP about five years ago and Howard says the current build is actually in a playable state. He did go on to describe the title as a next-gen experience once again after that comment.
As far as expectations go, it still sounds like hoping this title releases in the next year or so is setting yourself up for heartbreak. It’s very encouraging to hear that the title is in a playable state, but there could still be a few years of work left to do before it arrives on home consoles.
It’s also still difficult to interpret Howard’s ‘next-gen’ descriptor. The next console generation hasn’t officially been announced yet, though Microsoft does seem to be working on something codenamed Scarlet, so it’s hard to know what Howard really means. At this point, fans may just want to keep their fingers crossed that Starfield returns to the stage at next year’s E3 with a few more details.
Starfield is currently in development, and may be releasing on the next generation of consoles.
