Highlights
- The Elder Scrolls 6 is finally in full production after eight years of development and will likely be released in 2026 or later.
- The Thalmor, Tamriel's greatest threats, should be properly confronted in The Elder Scrolls 6 to provide a satisfying payoff for things set up in Skyrim.
- The time between TES games is proving too long to delay the Thalmor threat any longer.
With Starfield out the door after eight years of development, Bethesda recently announced that The Elder Scrolls 6 is finally in full production. That said, the game likely won't be released until 2026 or later and will be an Xbox and PC exclusive, which is bad news for many fans. Still, others will undoubtedly be excited by The Elder Scrolls' first new AAA single-player experience since 2021.
15 or more years between games is a long time, especially since a few of the things set up in 2011 never got a proper payoff. One of the biggest is the Thalmor, a faction of High Elf supremacists who rule over a fascistic, totalitarian state called the Third Aldmeri Dominion. Considering the Thalmor are arguably one of Tamriel's greatest threats, The Elder Scrolls 6 must allow players to confront them properly.
The Next Elder Scrolls Should be About the Thalmor
Thalmor influence is everywhere in Skyrim. Dominion agents travel freely across the Empire, rounding up suspected Talos worshippers. The Thalmor's ban on Talos worship eventually led to Skyrim's Civil War, a conflict that the Dominion seeks to draw out as long as possible. One could even argue that the Thalmor played a crucial role in setting Skyrim's main questline in motion by provoking the Civil War and fulfilling the prophecy for Alduin's return.
While Skyrim players might fight individual members, they never have an opportunity to combat the Thalmor as a whole. That was fine because Skyrim was about the Civil War and the Dragons returning. The Province of Skyrim is also far from the Dominion's center of power, so it makes since they were not the game's primary focus. However, while that was okay in 2011, TES fans have waited a long time for a proper confrontation with the Thalmor.
Documents in the Thalmor Embassy and General Tullius' comments if the Empire wins the Civil War hint that a new Great War is on the horizon. Given this, Some fans might assume the Thalmor will be The Elder Scrolls 6's main antagonists. This also fits in with the widely held belief that The Elder Scrolls 6 will take place in Hammerfell. After all, The Dominion tried to conquer the province once and may try again.
The problem with this theory is that the Thalmor aren't typical Elder Scrolls main villains. Most TES games revolve around the return of some ancient and powerful evil. The closest any game in the main series got to political conflict was The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, which saw multiple factions fighting over control of an ancient reality-warping golem called the Numidium.
Elder Scrolls' villains also generally tend to be closely related to the lore of wherever the game takes place. Thalmor invaded Hammerfell, but that was a relatively recent occurrence. It hasn't played as much of a role in shaping the territory's history as Dragons did for Skyrim or the Heart of Lorkhan for Morrowind. Given all of that, it wouldn't be surprising if Bethesda instead focused on something more specific to Hammerfell as The Elder Scrolls 6's main quest line.
However, Bethesda would be making a big mistake if the Thalmor didn't take center stage in TES 6. It's been 12 years since Skyrim, and it'll be 15 years if the next game launches in 2026; it could be a lot longer, depending on when The Elder Scrolls 6 comes out. Meanwhile, a hypothetical The Elder Scrolls 7 might be decades away. If a new Elder Scrolls game came out every four years or so, it might make sense to save the Thalmor for later. However, 15+ years between games isn't sustainable for an ongoing storyline.
Therefore, it is critical that The Elder Scrolls 6 finally pays off everything Skyrim set up about the Thalmor. This doesn't necessarily need to mean destroying the Thalmor completely. However, TES6 needs to let players face the Aldmeri Dominion as the game’s primary antagonist.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.