Microsoft lawyer slips, discusses Elder Scrolls 16

Elder Scrolls 9 was the best one

In case you haven’t heard, there’s been a whole thing with Microsoft and the FTC going on. Something about companies buying other companies, I don’t know, sounds like another day of capitalism to me. The important thing for those of us whose legal knowledge begins and ends with watching 2001’s Legally Blonde has been the inadvertent game reveals that just can’t stop popping up. Yet despite all the juicy news, the most recent “leak” has fascinated me on a profound level, even though I’m certain it does not exist.

As transcribed by The Verge, a lawyer representing Microsoft wanted to correct the FTC on some potential misconceptions. The result is this utterly amazing quote.

Could I clarify one issue that counsel raised with you, when you were asking about Zenimax and asked him to find a game that was most similar to Xbox, he mentioned Elder Scrolls. That is incorrect. There are two Elder Scrolls games, one is online called Elder Scrolls Online — that is a multiplayer game, it is on PlayStation today. The game he’s talking about Elder Scrolls 16… the projected release is 2026 as a single-player game. It is not anywhere similar to Call of Duty, which as you know is multiplayer and multi-platform.

Look, I get this is a bit out of context, so I’ll give the lawyer some benefit of the doubt here. But if you think I’m not going to take this opportunity to joke about Elder Scrolls 16 with you then I won’t even finish-

Chapter 1: Morrowind

Firstly, nothing has ever made me contemplate my mortality more than the sheer thought of The Elder Scrolls 16 existing. My first memory of the series was with The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind on the original Xbox.

For those who never played this classic RPG, it tasks players with dicking around to increase their stats until they are strong enough to kill all the guards and become mayor of every town. At least, that was my takeaway when I was 13. The internet has since told me that there was apparently a storyline in that game. I’m going to need at least five sources on that before I believe it.

I got a bit off track there. The point is, that was so long ago that Morrowind is allowed to drink in the United States now. Yet we haven’t even seen footage of The Elder Scrolls 6, let alone 16. By my estimation, if Bethesda does nothing but work on Elder Scrolls games, we should realistically expect Elder Scrolls 16 roughly 12 minutes before the heat death of the universe.

I already ran out of chapter names

Let’s not get away from the other important reveal here: “it is not anywhere similar to Call of Duty.” Oh thank god. I’ve been worried about that one. Easily my biggest complaint about Skyrim was that it was way too similar to Call of Duty. They’re both in first-person, you can shoot things in both, I rest my case.

Personally, I hope Elder Scrolls 16 goes in a whole new direction. First, they gotta change that camera. Put it in a dedicated third-person view so the camera can really zoom out and show you battle arenas. Second, spice up that combat. Even if you have to scale down the RPG elements, making enemy encounters fast and frantic would really bring a lot of new fans to the series. Third, for the story, I think they should watch Game of Thrones and I just realized I’m describing Final Fantasy XVI.

I dunno, I still think it’s a good idea.

Chapter 16: I’ll be serious now (maybe)

So obviously you can chalk much of this quote up to a mistake. By Elder Scrolls 16, obviously the lawyer meant The Elder Scrolls 6. That is a video game that we may, theoretically, see before we leave this mortal coil. One could treat this as a leak, and believe The Elder Scrolls 6 will launch in 2026.

Now… at this point, I could toss out quotes by Phil Spencer and the like that might conflict with this claim. But frankly, I don’t think I need to. In a world in which Starfield hasn’t even launched yet, I cannot close my eyes, really focus on the words, and say “The Elder Scrolls 6 is coming out in 2026” without cackling like I just saw Mega Man take a bullet for Abraham Lincoln. There is no way in all seven of the hells that The Elder Scrolls 6 will come out in 2026. I’d be pleasantly surprised if the thing even comes out within this decade.

In short, I’m left with the sinking suspicion that Microsoft did not hire this lawyer based on their Xbox GamerScore. And if you see anyone that takes any stock in their claims, kindly tell them that they are wrong. But what do I know, I just write about video games. The last good video game I played was Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose for the SNES, and honestly, Todd Howard better come prepared if he wants the next Elder Scrolls to clear that bar.

_{[Special thanks to our Freelancer Andrew Heaton for tipping us about this story.]}