It has been 15 years since the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and the hunger for a new journey to Tamriel has never been louder. In a candid new interview with GamesRadar, Bethesda studio design director Emil Pagliarulo admitted what the team has learned from developing Starfield and its recent expansion Shattered Space: “Fans really, really, really want Elder Scrolls 6.” The statement is hardly a surprise, but it underscores the mounting pressure on one of the industry’s most beloved RPG studios as it balances life beyond the Milky Way with the call of a legendary fantasy world.
Pagliarulo’s words arrive at a curious moment for Bethesda’s space epic. Shattered Space, the first major story expansion for Starfield, launched to a “Mixed” reception on Steam before sliding further into “Mostly Negative” territory. At first glance, that might seem like a verdict on the DLC’s quality, but a closer look reveals a different story. A significant portion of those negative reviews have little to do with the Va’ruun-themed content, its new weapons, or the handcrafted environments of House Va’ruun’s homeworld. Instead, they read like a collective groan from players tired of waiting for the next mainline Elder Scrolls adventure. Many of these reviews come from owners of the Premium Edition who automatically received Shattered Space and logged a rating without ever stepping foot on the new planet—Steam does not distinguish DLC playtime from the base game, enabling a flood of feedback disconnected from the expansion itself.
Yet Pagliarulo struck a defiantly optimistic tone about Starfield’s path forward. “I’m excited about the stuff we’re working on now, and the stuff we’ve got coming past that,” he teased, confirming that another expansion is already in the pipeline. “And it’s insane what our mod community has already accomplished. I think we’re now coming to the point where Starfield is transcending its status as a game and becoming something of a platform for science fiction and space content.” That language—platform—signals how Bethesda views the long tail of Starfield. With a robust modding toolkit, the game can evolve into a persistent canvas for player-created quests, ships, and entire new systems, much as Skyrim did before it. The studio seems to be betting that Starfield can replicate the decade-spanning relevance of its fantasy cousin, even as sci-fi fans face a slower burn than the immediate widespread adoration Skyrim enjoyed.
But every mention of Starfield’s bright future is inevitably measured against the shadow of Tamriel. The Elder Scrolls 6 remains one of the few announced projects without a release window, a deliberate silence born from past regret. Todd Howard has publicly admitted that the initial teaser trailer back in 2018 was a mistake—a knee-jerk attempt to quiet an increasingly restless community. The studio showed its hand far too early, and since then Bethesda has been careful not to feed the hype beast without concrete material. As of early 2026, development is officially underway, and back in March 2025 the team was reportedly playing through a rudimentary build, a sign that the project is moving beyond the writing and concept phase. Still, don’t expect a blowout anytime soon. The lessons from Starfield‘s lengthy reveal-to-launch cycle and the noise around Shattered Space reviews are clear: Bethesda will only speak when there is something substantial to show.
For now, the messaging is a delicate balancing act. Pagliarulo’s comments celebrate Starfield’s evolving identity while acknowledging an undeniable truth—the Elder Scrolls community is starved. Below the surface, a few interesting dynamics are at play:
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🔹 Review bombing by proxy: Shattered Space has become a punching bag not because it fails as an expansion, but because it symbolizes resources directed away from Elder Scrolls 6. This misdirected frustration highlights how deeply fans conflate all Bethesda projects with their personal priority list.
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🔹 The platform play: Treating Starfield as a “platform” mirrors the Skyrim modding phenomenon. With over 40 million mod downloads for Skyrim, Bethesda aims to capture similar lightning in a sci-fi bottle, ensuring Starfield remains relevant while TES6 incubates for years.
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🔹 The tightrope of early announcements: Howard’s regret over the 2018 teaser informs the current radio silence on TES6. Bethesda may drop small, meaningful updates only when internal milestones are met, likely avoiding another trailer until the year of release—whenever that may be.
Looking ahead, the path for Bethesda is both promising and precarious. Starfield will continue to grow through expansions, quality-of-life updates, and mod support, gradually winning over skeptics. Meanwhile, The Elder Scrolls 6 churns forward in the background, a project that will shoulder monumental expectations after a 15-plus-year gap. Pagliarulo’s simple, triple-emphasized “really” captures the sentiment of millions: no matter how vast the cosmos, fans are always looking to the stars for a glimpse of Tamriel’s next great prophecy.