Bethesda veteran Kurt Kuhlmann explained what the decision to do Starfield instead of The Elder Scrolls 6 was a complete surprise for the studio. According to the developer, the team was confident that after Fallout 4 the team would take on the sixth part of The Elder Scrolls.
Kuhlmann joined the company in 1996, wrote the main storyline for Oblivion and was one of the lead designers on Skyrim. He left the studio in 2023 after a “difficult conversation” during which he was denied the position of presenter on The Elder Scrolls 6.
In conversation with Frvr he described the situation as if plans had changed without any discussion within the team:
We all expected The Elder Scrolls 6 to come out right after Fallout 4. Why not? That’s exactly how we worked, and that’s the expectation we all had. And then Fallout 76 came along.
According to Kuhlmann, Fallout 76 was not originally planned as a studio-wide project, but ended up distracting a significant portion of the staff. Moreover, even after its completion, a return to The Elder Scrolls 6 was not planned.
Todd said, “No, we’re doing Starfield. I got the green light. It’s going to be a new IP. It’s going to be this ambitious game. It’s going to be the greatest space RPG ever made.”
The former designer suggests that after the commercial success of Fallout 4, Todd Howard had both the opportunity and influence to come to the management of ZeniMax with a request to postpone The Elder Scrolls 6. Kuhlmann himself calls this a difficult position to promote, adding that convincing the publisher clearly was not easy.
Personally, he would have preferred to work on The Elder Scrolls 6 instead of Fallout 76 and Starfield, and he estimated that most of the studio’s employees wanted the same.
It’s not that Starfield was some big internal impulse like, “Hey Todd, we all want to make this space game.” It was more like, “Guess what, team? We’re making this space game.”
The description of Howard as someone whose word is rarely challenged within the studio is consistent with the accounts of other former Bethesda employees.
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Character artist Dennis Mejiones previously compared him to George Lucas and noted that many were afraid to say no to Todd, which was to his detriment.
The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced at E3 2018 with a short teaser, after which Bethesda did not show any gameplay or specific dates. Starfield released in 2023 to a lukewarm reception due to its procedurally generated planets, outdated technical base and lackluster setting, and was overshadowed by Baldur’s Gate 3.
