‘The Elder Scrolls VI’ Is Reportedly Subtitled Sentinel, With Story Details Emerging Ahead of a Rumored November Reveal

More than eight years after Bethesda first teased it, The Elder Scrolls VI may finally have a name. According to a new report, the long-awaited role-playing game will be called The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel, and Bethesda could unveil the official title as soon as next month.

Citing sources familiar with Bethesda’s plans, Warren reported that the reveal could coincide with the 15th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which launched on Nov. 11, 2011. Fans hoping for a full trailer may want to temper expectations, however, as the report indicates the announcement is expected to be limited to the title, even though Bethesda has been showing gameplay internally in recent months.

The report also supports one of the game’s most enduring fan theories: that it is set in Hammerfell, the desert province of Tamriel that serves as the homeland of the Redguards. Sentinel is one of Hammerfell’s major cities and the capital of the kingdom of the same name, sitting on the coast of the Iliac Bay.

Hammerfell has appeared in spinoffs such as The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard and The Elder Scrolls Online, but a mainline entry has not spent significant time there since The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall in 1996. Fans have long pointed to the desert landscapes and coastline seen in the brief 2018 announcement teaser as evidence the region was the setting.

On the story front, Sentinel will be the first game in the series to dig into the history of the Elder Scrolls themselves, the mysterious ancient artifacts that give the franchise its name and have remained largely unexplained across three decades of games.

The Sentinel name had already become the frontrunner among fans after Xbox CEO Asha Sharma visited Bethesda Game Studios’ Rockville, Maryland, headquarters on Aug. 11. Following a live playthrough of the game, Sharma posted on X that she had seen “The Elder Scrolls VI: ********,” adding that the game’s scale and grandeur were “incredible” and that its story was “even greater.” Bethesda Game Studios replied with the same eight asterisks.

Sentinel fits the eight-character gap exactly. Fans soon pointed to a numeric Easter egg in Starfield that decodes to “SENTINEL,” and former Bethesda writer Michael Kirkbride, who helped shape the series’ lore but no longer works at the studio, answered a fan’s question about the title with a simple “Yep.”

Bethesda officially announced The Elder Scrolls VI at its E3 2018 press conference with little more than a logo and a landscape shot, and has shown almost nothing since. Game director Todd Howard said in February that the game is being developed as a “classic Bethesda” RPG in the vein of Oblivion and Skyrim.

Even with a title reveal on the horizon, the game itself is likely still years away. Reports also suggest Microsoft is weighing whether to make it an Xbox exclusive, a departure from previous Elder Scrolls entries that launched on PlayStation as well. Bethesda has not commented on The Verge’s report.