Things people want in the Elder Scrolls VI that I don't

The Elder Scrolls VI is allegedly coming out at some point, and it's fun to hear what people want out of it. There are lots of posts along these lines, going back over 13 years to the era of recession pop and skinny jeans.

So, instead of writing about all the things I want to see, the pessimist inside me thought I'd write a post ruthlessly criticising all the most popular ideas that seem to surface and resurface. I have rambled a bit here so peace out if you get bored.

(On a serious note, my critiques are intended to be very friendly and toothless, and come from a place of wanting to know why fans want some of this stuff rather than me having a personal issue with it. If you want sailing or sex minigames in ESVI then that's obviously fine.)

So here's all the things I see people really want in ESVI that I would hate to see. I encourage vehement disagreement in the comments.

Sailing

This would be the big one for me. I can't understand why I see it mentioned so much.

I have nightmares about a large chunk of the map being converted into a glorified water level, or a hefty wedge of development time being invested into ocean procgen. And then you get into the mechanics of sailing. I've seen it done well three times: in Sea of Thieves, Black Flag, and in Wind Waker. Never anywhere else. (And to be honest, it still bored the life out of me - especially in Black Flag).

Elder Scrolls games already have problems with the mechanics of the core gameplay loop feeling weightless, undercooked, and floaty (like a boat, haha). Building an entire sailing system and taking exploration hours away from the mainland, in my opinion, just sounds really unappealing and quite boring. I'd say this is the only idea for TES VI that I actively hate the sound of.

Two+ Provinces

This one I understand a little more. It gives you diversity of cultures, of environments. But it starts to break down when you really think about it.

First of all, the world is going to feel smaller if you try to fit two provinces into it. You could do half of each, but then you have problems with fleshing out the cultures themselves. Think about, for example, Oblivion. It is set in Cyrodiil, the largest and (arguably) most diverse province, and one of the biggest criticisms it gets is the underwhelming way this is represented in game. The Imperial cultures feel homogenous, the cities feel largely similar in terms of who inhabits them and how they're laid out, and the countryside lacks the character of Morrowind or Skyrim.

Contrast with Morrowind: you are in Vvardenfell, a relatively small slice of the province, which feels a lot more alive. The cultures are allowed to breathe, they're allowed to develop, the interplays between peoples and the little rituals of the different houses and tribes and guilds feel a lot finer. While Skyrim is more grounded and less alien, it has a similar philosophy: let's absolutely nail this race of Nords and make their culture feel organic, plausible, and immersive. We have a full writing team working on getting this right and we're going to nail the art style, the language, and the subcultures.

Imagine setting your sixth game in Elsweyr / Valenwood, or High Rock / Hammerfell, and having a writing team split in two writing two completely different cultures that need to interact in a satisfying way. It's an immensely tall order to flesh out and do justice to, for example, the catty esotericisms of Khajiiti society and the horny cannibalism of Bosmeri society. And don't get me started on the cities that can walk around.

Turning the game into a management sim

Another one that drives me a bit mad. Actually maybe a bit more than sailing because it gets away from what I think an Elder Scrolls game should be, which I know makes me sound like a bit of a bitch but hey ho.

People want their own towns, their own people to look after, for this to be dynamic and interact with the world at large.

Now, I don't have a problem with a dedicated player fortress. This even sounds cool: something like the castle in Pillars of Eternity, where you can buy upgrades and even decorate a little with some customisation. This could be done, I reckon.

My problem comes when I hear people want resource management as a dominant feature. They want, as far as I can tell, a game within a game.

Think of resource / kingdom / empire management sims. Now think of how many good ones there are. Now think of how even the good ones are a little unbalanced and imperfect and require about 6 pieces of DLC at minimum to feel right. And Bethesda are not a studio dedicated to this.

Trying to make this work would eat so much of the dev time; I enjoyed the settlement building in FO4, but it was extremely janky and didn't justify its gameplay focus in my opinion.

More scale

I get this one. Running from Riften to Solitude in 90 minutes does make the world feel quite small. But there are similar problems here to the whole two provinces thing.

I would say it's pretty inarguable that the best thing about these games is the handcrafted world. Play another open world game, and you'll see what I mean. Assassin's Creed is the obvious one for maps that are just way too big for no reason, but even beloved games like The Witcher and RDR (two of my favourites) have this problem of 'we have made a giant world that is big and immersive but there's not really much incentive to snoop around the nooks and crannies of it, and you'll find yourself fast travelling around soon enough.' Elder Scrolls games are different, especially Morrowind and Skyrim. I never want to fast travel in these games. Something always happens on my walk somewhere, I always find something worth checking out. This is because the world is small enough for granular elements to shine.

The Thalmor as the Big Bad

I actually really get this one and wouldn't be too mad if it happened.

I just feel like the Thalmor do more as a peripheral aspect of the worldbuilding. Here, they can build tension and create stakes, as well as apply cultural pressure to the setting, instead of being a straight up villain you can take down forever through might of arms. There has to be something hanging over the narrative you don't deal with directly and I think the Thalmor should be it; it potentially creates some really interesting political situations and gives the world a bit of greyness that it benefits from.

A Human Province

This is just directed at people who want High Rock or Hammerfell.

A human province will still be cool and great, but give me something alien. Please. Give me a big mushroom and a weird culture. Make me feel like an outsider again. In the Elder Scrolls, you have fantasy Nordics, fantasy Romans, fantasy French / English, and fantasy Moors / Arabians. Yeah, they're very different to how they are in reality, but there are just so many zany cultures to get into that are much more interesting. This is a lot less objective than my previous arguments to be honest. If they made a game in Hammerfell it would still slap.

Conclusion

I need to start making more of my Fridays. Anyway, $4 a pound.