Highlights

  • The Thieves Guild could be reinvented in Hammerfell in The Elder Scrolls 6 to reflect the region's unique culture and history.
  • The possibility of pirates working with the Thieves Guild in Hammerfell presents an intriguing and natural progression for gameplay.
  • By adapting the Thieves Guild to focus on piracy along the coast in cities like Abah's Landing, The Elder Scrolls 6 can add variation and depth.

The Thieves Guild has a presence across all the provinces and countries of Tamriel, and Hammerfell is no different. With the possibility that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be set in Hammerfell, there's an opportunity to reinvent the Thieves Guild so that, while it still remains true to the tenets of the other guildhalls in other parts of Tamriel, it reflects the environment and history of Hammerfell.

While The Elder Scrolls main series hasn't depicted Hammerfell since The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, it has featured heavily in The Elder Scrolls Online, and its Thieves Guild even gets insight into the Thieves Guild DLC. Hammerfell's unique culture has the potential to shape the Thieves Guild in The Elder Scrolls 6 and turn it into a faction more interactive and meaningful than ever before.

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How Thieve's Guild Could Work in The Elder Scrolls 6

Hammerfell is a massive region with a large interior far from the ocean, but it also has a long coastline that includes a multitude of islands. The Elder Scrolls Online's depiction of Hammerfell included pirates along the coast, particularly centered around Abah's Landing, a city located on the peninsula on the southern coast of Hammerfell. While pirates and the Thieves Guild are two separate entities in The Elder Scrolls Online, there is a time gap of at least 949 years between ESO and Skyrim. Much may have changed between the two entities, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that they could be working together, or have merged by the time of The Elder Scrolls 6. Because piracy plays such a large role in crime in the region, combining the two would be a natural progression.

While pirates would be centered on the coast, it's not unusual for the Thieves Guild to have a single city as a base of operations, such as Riften in Skyrim. Abah's Landing could work as this base city, and have a structure that's based on piracy and smuggling along the coast, particularly the islands such as Stros M'Kai. The Elder Scrolls 6 could handle the Thieves Guild in several ways, two of which having the Abah's Landing chapter of the Thieves Guild specialize in piracy, while other chapters further inland could focus on more conventional pickpocketing and burglary. An alternative option would be for the Thieves Guild to have two different specialized routes that the player can choose between, one being piracy, and the other being pickpocketing and burglary.

Changing the Thieves Guild for Hammerfell

Both of these options would give the Thieves Guild some much-needed variation while keeping it on theme and within the context of Hammerfell. As the College of Winterhold and Companions were shaped by the history and culture of Skyrim, the world and culture should shape the factions of Hammerfell. This is also an opportunity to make faction storylines and characters more engaging and interactive, especially if it forces players to interact with the environments and venture into different parts of Hammerfell.

The guilds in The Elder Scrolls have gone through significant changes thanks to geographic location and timeline before. This was seen in The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind's Dark Brotherhood, with the Morag Tong in control and forcing the Dark Brotherhood out of the province, the College of Winterhold in lieu of the Mages Guild, and the Companions in place of the Fighters Guild in Skyrim. Even the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim has experienced an upheaval thanks to the lack of a Listener, although it was restored to its recognizable form throughout the events of the game.