Fans have already waited a long time for The Elder Scrolls 6. Skyrim turned ten in late 2021, and The Elder Scrolls 6's announcement trailer debuted at E3 2018, with still no release date in sight, but Xbox and PC users can at least say with confidence that they'll get to play it eventually. Microsoft and Bethesda may not have fully confirmed it yet, but The Elder Scrolls 6 will likely be a PC and Xbox Exclusive.
Still, while that's unfortunate news for PlayStation fans, it may come with an unexpected upside. Bethesda's open-world RPGs are notoriously buggy, as anyone who's played one can attest. However, The Elder Scrolls 6's likely Xbox exclusivity could lead to a much more polished launch when the new game finally releases.
Bethesda's History of Buggy Games
It's not a particularly fresh observation to say that Bethesda games tend to be glitchy. Some of these glitches can be helpful. Others are funny but may just get annoying. Over ten years later, Skyrim players still encounter strange bugs, weird animation glitches, NPCs phasing through the ground, and other weird issues. Some glitches from the original release remain in the Anniversary Edition release, and Bethesda's other open-world games aren't much better.
While many may grip about this, there are reasons why the studio's games often have many issues. Historically, part of the problem comes from the game engine. Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 were developed in Bethesda's Creation Engine, with Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 using the updated Creation Engine 2. However, both versions of the Creation Engine are still based on the Gamebryo Engine used on Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas. As a result, the Creation Engine inherited many of the Gamebryo's stability issues and general finicky nature.
The size of Bethesda games is also an important factor. While there are games with bigger open worlds than a typical Bethesda RPG, they're still extensive and highly detailed relative to their size. It's also worth remembering that while Starfield's team is much larger, only about 100 people worked on Skyrim and Fallout 4. While that's hardly a small team, it's worth remembering that The Witcher 3 had around 1500 developers, built around a core in-house team of 250. Given the comparatively small size of Bethesda's team at the time, it's not surprising that so many glitches slipped through the cracks.
The Elder Scrolls 6 Might Benefit from Exclusivity
PlayStation fans have every right to be annoyed that The Elder Scrolls 6 might not come to PS5. However, this may be a good thing for the game's quality. It's a simple fact that launching a game on multiple platforms takes a lot of extra time, work, and money. The Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S run on modified versions of the Windows 10 operating systems, and both use the same development tools and programming interfaces. This makes it relatively easy to develop games that are playable on both.
The PlayStation 5, however, uses a proprietary operating system. This isn't a problem for games only released on PS5, but it means a lot of extra work for cross-platform game developers. Xbox and PC exclusivity, therefore, frees up more time for developers to spend on testing and bug fixing. While glitches are probably inevitable on any game as big as The Elder Scrolls 6 will probably be, the final game may be much more polished than its cross-platform predecessors.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the extra time and sole console focus would be as helpful as it sounds. There are also plenty of fair criticisms to be made of exclusivity as a concept. However, The Elder Scrolls 6's Xbox and PC exclusivity may come with a big silver lining.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.
