The Elder Scrolls 6 is probably still a long way off, and development likely won’t begin in earnest until after Starfield releases next year. A leak from 2021 indicated that the next Elder Scrolls might release in 2024. However, that would imply the game was much further along than Bethesda’s statements suggest. With all the information available, estimates of 2025 or later seem more plausible.
Regardless of when The Elder Scrolls 6 eventually releases, most fans seem confident that the next game will take players to the arid land of Hammerfell. There’s a degree of ambiguity to Hammerfell’s current situation in The Elder Scrolls, but it’s a region of many city-states and petty kingdoms. This complex setting would be the perfect place for a system similar to Fallout: New Vegas’ factions.
Factions in Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout: New Vegas featured many factions ranging from individual settlements and gangs, like Goodsprings and the Powder Gangers, to great powers like Caesar’s Legion and the NCR. While players can’t officially join most of them, every faction they encounter has an opinion of them. NPCs from factions who like the player will often greet them warmly and may even give the player gifts or offer other benefits. Meanwhile, the members of hostile factions will insult or berate the player, assuming they don’t simply attack on sight.
Faction relations are generally determined by how many quests the player’s done for them compared to how many hostile actions they’ve taken. For some groups, improving relations is just a matter of doing them favors and not killing or stealing from their members. However, doing favors for one faction often means taking hostile actions against their enemies, turning them against the player. This could sometimes cause some annoyances in New Vegas, but that’s more a matter of execution than an issue with the concept. Players could also avoid some adverse effects thanks to New Vegas’ disguise system.
Factions in Skyrim
Developers significantly streamlined Skyrim’s factions compared to Oblivion and Morrowind. Guild ranks were removed, and the Morrowind-era skill requirements are long gone. Most joinable factions never interact, and players can easily become the Harbinger of the Companions, Master of the Thieves Guild, Archmage of Winterhold, and Listener of the Dark Brotherhood with a single character. And while it’s understandable that Bethesda might not want to completely lock players out of certain quest lines, juggling all of this should at least take some effort on the player’s part. The only times players need to pick a side are with Skyrim’s Civil War factions and choosing between the DLC’s, Dawnguard and Volkihar Vampires.
The system is also shallow in other ways. Players don’t have very nuanced relationships with Skyrim’s factions, simply being either a member or not. It’s also impossible to make most factions hostile and getting kicked out is more of an inconvenience than a meaningful penalty. Meanwhile, town guards will chase and arrest the player for crimes and players can earn titles from local rulers. However, players don’t have city-wide reputations like in New Vegas, and while these aren’t necessarily flaws with Skyrim, it shows there is room for The Elder Scrolls 6 to improve upon Skyrim’s factions.
New Vegas' Style Factions in The Elder Scrolls 6
The next Elder Scrolls is the perfect place to implement a New Vegas-style faction system. The Elder Scrolls 6’s setting of Hammerfell lacks a unified government like Skyrim’s High King. Its many Kings are also fully independent from great powers like the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion.
The native Redguards divide themselves into the traditionalist Crowns, Imperial-influenced Forebears, and nomadic Alik’r tribes. Crowns usually ally with Crowns and Forebears with Forebears, and the two factions have united against each other more than once. However, these are mainly cultural and religious distinctions rather than political parties. Each tribe, kingdom, and city-state is an independent actor with different and conflicting interests, which sounds more like the feuding factions of Fallout: New Vegas than the relative simplicity of Skyrim’s Civil War.
For example, The Elder Scrolls 6 might see the Crown kingdom of Elinhir feuding with the Forebear kingdom of Rihad. The ruler of Elinhir might send the player character to secure a location guarded by Rihad soldiers. This would earn players favor with the king of Elinhir but anger Rihad. Meanwhile, the Thieves Guild in Abah’s Landing could send players to steal an artifact from the tent of an Alik’r chieftain. The Thieves would pay handsomely and make the player character the talk of the town. However, the Alik’r would be outraged and greet the player with hostility.
Having multiple joinable factions with conflicting goals isn’t completely alien to The Elder Scrolls. Morrowind featured 26 joinable and NPC factions, all of which had an opinion of every other group. Joining one faction will change how the others feel about the player, and the player may need to put in extra work to be a member of two factions that don’t get along.
Being a member of one of Morrowind’s Great House factions also makes it easier to complete a specific part of the main quest, especially if the player is the House’s leader. The Elder Scrolls 6 could have a similar feature, asking the player to earn the trust of Hammerfell’s major powers. This would require taking sides in regional conflicts, attempting to mediate between hostile factions, and deciding Hammerfell’s political landscape for decades to come.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.