Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-96.252.245.207-20130116060134/@comment-99.20.139.40-20131219074150

After reading most of this, I can assure you all of several things. First, it won't be the whole map of Tamriel. That's what the Elder Scrolls Online MMO is for. Second, placing the game soley in Elsweyr woudn't work, the map size would be smaller than Skryim, which would be disappointing, and the same goes for soley placing it in Summerset Isles. Now, a game with both Elsweyr and Valenwood together, with or without the Summerset Isles is a possibility, because the map size would be a little bigger than Skyrim, BUT as some other people have said, the race diversity in those provinces isn't as grand as most of the other provinces. It wouln't make much sense for your character to be anything but a native race to the Dominion territories. Black Marsh is also out of the question, as it's land is almost too inhospitable for races other than the Argonians. Know your lore.

Now, as for the civil war and dark brotherhood choices in Skyrim... it would be very tough, no doubt, to find a way to include them in the story. But they have to be included somehow, at least in a lore book or something. The problem is that they gave the player a choice in the war, and also in the dark brotherhood if you paid attention, you could kill all the brotherhood instead as an alternate questline. So the choices screw with the lore background story of all future installements of the franchise, because they would have to put it in a lore book who won the war, and also the dark brotherhood story because if you choose to kill them instead, the Emperor doesn't die. Still, either way, it would be tough. Almost makes me think they might go back in time like Elder Scrolls Online is doing, but I doubt that almost entirely. A second Great War is bound to happen, many characters from Skyrim mentioned it, and so the story must continue somehow, someway in the next game.

The real questions are where will the game take place? How far in the furture? And what will our character be? Someone almost god-like like the dragonborn? Or a more simple hero? It's all up in the air right now and all we can do is wait and spectulate. Bethesda makes and publishes more games than just the Elder Scrolls, and given the release timeline of previous Elder Scrolls games, it is my estimation that we won't see The Elder Scrolls VI until at least 2016, with possibly a teaser trailer in 2015. Fallout 4 still needs to come out and I can guarentee you Bethesda will prioritize it over the next Elder Scrolls game, just as they did with Skyrim being restricted from development until after Fallout 3 came out. Plus Bethesda also just released their annual Christmas card, teasing at next year's upcoming titles, and Fallout 4 doesn't appear to be on there.

Also I think it depends on the success of the Elder Scrolls MMO, and whether it does well or not. On one hand, if it does well, Bethesda will want Zenimax to maximize it's potential for as many years as possible, possibly making all the single-player Elder Scrolls fans slowly be forced to migrate to the MMO if they want more Elder Scrolls content for many years to come. On the other hand, if it does poorly, then we could see them rush along development for The Elder Scrolls VI so they can save their own asses and reputation with the Elder Scrolls fanbase and franchise. Either way, anyone with a brain knows that we are in for a long, LONG wait for The Elder Scrolls VI... 2016 at the earliest as I said before. It's a sad truth to be realized, but games take time to make and be polished. And speaking of polishing... let's hope that Bethesda spends alot of time and takes care to make sure the next Elder Scrolls installment is far less buggy than the previous installments.

Cheers!