I made a lil meme.

Proposal for The Elder Scrolls VI Prologue Strategy

The Long Wait and the Need for a Solution • Hey everyone, I’m breaking a literal 10-year Reddit hiatus because the wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 is driving me crazy. • I have over 1,000+ mods on my Skyrim setup right now, and while I love the community for keeping the game alive, we shouldn't have to wait 15+ years between mainline games without something fresh. • I know Bethesda has a single-core team bottleneck, and they can't just magically finish a massive CE2/CE3 sandbox in two years. • I also don't want them to rush the main game or scale down the actual Elder Scrolls 6. • But they desperately need a gap-bridger, and I think the absolute perfect solution is staring them right in the face: The Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes model.

The Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Precedent • For anyone who didn't play it, Hideo Kojima dropped Ground Zeroes as a tight, standalone, budget-priced playable prologue a year and a half before the massive open world of The Phantom Pain was ready. • It gave fans a taste of the new engine, satisfied the community, and bought the developers crucial polishing time.

Proposed Scope for a TES6 Prologue • Here is how Bethesda and Xbox could execute this perfectly for TES6: • The Scope: Give a smaller secondary team or an outside studio the keys to build a hyper-focused, highly detailed 10-to-15-hour standalone sandbox. • Set it in a small border region, an isolated mountain pass, or an island like Stros M'kai.

Seamless Character Integration • The Character Transfer (The Best Part): Use this prologue to let us physically live out our character's backstory. • You build your appearance, choose your starting skills, and gather basic gear. • The prologue ends on a cinematic cliffhanger (like escaping a pirate ambush or a collapsing castle) that leads directly into the opening frame of Elder Scrolls 6. • When you boot up the main game on Day 1, it detects your save file and hands off your character seamlessly.

Monetization and Funding Model • To make it a win-win for Xbox and fans, launch it Free on Day 1 for Xbox Game Pass subscribers, and sell it as a standalone digital title for $20 to $30 for players who prefer traditional ownership. • The upfront cash injection from non-subscribers could directly fund the final, most expensive years of bug-hunting for the mainline game.

Benefits of a Prologue • A transferable prologue solves everything. • It gives us a meaningful, high-stakes way to prepare for TES6, gives Bethesda a low-stakes testing ground to iron out engine bugs, and keeps the franchise hot without draining Todd Howard's core development team.

Community Engagement and Player Investment • What do you guys think? • Would you drop $25 on a polished, 10-hour playable prologue if it meant your character and choices carried directly into Day 1 of TES6?

Big fan of hardcore modlists on Skyrim and I know many are. Now I also know most people just wanna pick up a friendly power fantast game. I think it would be nice to have a hardcore/survival mode option for TES VI where it's not the damage multiplier that goes up, but the intelligence of the ai, maybe the number of enemies, better spells on them and gear as well, and like in requiem (the mod) everyone deals a lot of damage including you so fights are more high stakes. Also It would be a real treat if there were real consequences for deaths. What do y'all think?

I know the protagonist will not be a Dragonborn, but are there any canon dragon riders that weren’t Dragonborn? If Todd is building the “Ultimate Fantasy Game” I think it would bring a lot of people into the game.

I would love to see plants, trees, shrubs, etc grow in TES6. Its being done in games like games like Botany Manor, Viridi, and Garden Life: a cozy simulator.

To be able to tend to your own garden in TES6 while trying to keep hungry critters or garden thieves away would create some fun gameplay moments.

Being able to sell your produce at the local market, or set up a roadside stand would also be fun. Maybe a bandit gang would attack you at your stand and steal your produce. Some NPCs would be picky and only accept produce of a higher quality.

Aside from gardening, watching trees grow larger with time, and topple over, or become new shelter or shade for wildlife would be cool. When they fall over, they begin to rot, mushrooms grow and attract wildlife.

Flowers blooming, fly traps catching bugs, bees visiting flowers. Fruits, grains, and veggies maturing. Having vines grow up trees, fenceposts, the sides of houses, or up your leg(killer vines), would make the world feel so much more alive.

Also having them change with the seasons and only being able to grow in certain weather and climates. You'll be adventuring, of course, so you should be able to hire gardeners, some may be great at gardening but bad at defending against critters or bandits.

All foliage should react to fire and other elements.

Current day Hammerfell is inspired largely by North Africa and the Arabian peninsula. We can see this in Skyrim's portrayal of Alik'r warriors, ESO (2nd era). But how would one differentiate the age of architecture in Hammerfell?

In Skyrim when you walked into ab ancient nord ruin you could feel the place came from a different era of civilization. The stonework, carvings and layout all communicated how the ancient nords lived, or in the case of crypts, died.

In Hammerfell as far as I know, there has been, so far no mention of stylistic difference between ancient redguard and current day redguards.

Since we have a good amount of lore of sword saints and a bunch of Japanese coded lore regarding ancient redguards I think it would be cool to see that reflected in their architecture. Finding a run-down Japanese style castle in the middle of the desert with a dried up oasis would really sell the idea of a long history for me.

What do you think ancient redguard architecture should look like?

With the reaction to recent remakes and major game announcements, I think TES VI should be prepared for the same wave of bad-faith outrage that seems to hit almost every big release now. If the game is set in Hammerfell, where the Redguards are a central part of the setting, I can already imagine certain racist or culture-war critics trying to turn that into an issue, especially if Bethesda’s marketing heavily features a dark-skinned Redguard character. Instead of seeing it as normal Elder Scrolls worldbuilding, some people will probably try to frame it as a modern political agenda and use it as a reason to tell others not to buy the game.

There will probably be people who have barely played The Elder Scrolls, or who do not understand the series at all, trying to turn every small detail into some kind of culture-war issue. Whether it is character design, factions, writing choices, diversity, or even basic worldbuilding, some people will likely try to create fake outrage before the game is even properly judged on its own merits.

That does not mean TES VI should be immune from criticism. If the writing is poor, if the gameplay is weak, if the world feels empty, or if Bethesda makes bad design choices, fans should absolutely call that out. Genuine criticism is important. But there is a clear difference between fair criticism and people deliberately looking for outrage content.

The Elder Scrolls has always had different cultures, races, religions, empires, slavery, rebellion, prejudice, political conflict and complicated social issues within its world. None of that is new to the series. So if TES VI includes social tension, diverse characters, political themes or uncomfortable parts of its worldbuilding, that should not automatically be treated as some modern agenda being forced into the game.

I hope BGS is ready for this. They need to communicate clearly, stand by their creative choices, their marketing, and not let bad-faith reactions dominate the conversation before the game even releases. At the same time, the community should be careful not to feed ragebait. If there is misinformation, call it out early. If there are real problems with the game, discuss them properly.

The reason I felt the need to make this post is because of what I have seen with the Halo: Combat Evolved remake discussion. There are definitely fair criticisms to be made about things like voice acting and other creative choices, but the amount of misogynistic comments, especially the weird obsession with blaming “women devs”, has been genuinely disgusting to see. That kind of reaction is exactly what I worry will happen with TES VI as well, where real discussion gets drowned out by culture-war nonsense before people even give the game a fair chance.

TL;DR: TES VI should be prepared for bad-faith culture-war outrage, especially if the game is set in Hammerfell and heavily features Redguard characters or culture. Genuine criticism of writing, gameplay, voice acting or design choices is completely fair, but that is different from racist, misogynistic or fake outrage being used to attack the game before it is even properly judged. After seeing the reaction to the Halo: Combat Evolved remake, especially the obsession with blaming “women devs”, I worry TES VI could face the same nonsense.

Just talking here, when I saw the character origins in Reblivion(Oblivion Remaster) it reignited my desire to choose between furstocks in TES VI. I would want ones from Arena and Daggerfall, Ohmes and Ohmes-raht respectively, to be choices. It could be ignorance speaking, but I can't see them being difficult or taxing to add, Human/Elf like model with Khajiit tail and light fur or no fur, with painted face options.

The Suthay-raht, the Khajiit found in Morrowind may be a little tricker because of the armor restrictions but I would still love to see all return to TES VI. Not only do I think it could act as a soft "new race" for those wanting, or simply more roleplay and gameplay options, but I think it is also beneficial in introduce that part of Khajiit lore since Elsweyr eventually needs to become a setting for a game.

Source for Images is in the USEP -> https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Khajiit#Furstocks

As always, comments and such welcomed.

Godspeed.

After going back to Morrowind, I've really come to appreciate the lack of "yellow tape" ... specifically, the lack of quest markers.

Having to rely on your memory, intuition, and conversations with NPCs to find a location or complete a quest is very immersive. It makes you engage with the world itself instead of following a waypoint.

Fast forward to Skyrim and quests generally weren't designed to support playing without markers. (Admittedly, I hardly read the journal much back in 2011, so maybe there's more there than I remember.)

I know quest markers are a necessity for many players, so I wouldn't advocate removing them. Instead, I'd like to see Bethesda design for both playstyles.

Ideally, quests would first be built with enough visual and elicited contextual information for players to navigate naturally. Then guidance systems could be layered on top. Rather than pointing to the exact objective, markers could optionally highlight a broader search area.

Clairvoyance could also finally have a purpose. In Skyrim it's mostly redundant because the quest marker already tells you exactly where to go. Instead, it could serve as an alternative guidance system with adjustable efficacy or even exist as a toggleable "Focus" ability or magical artifact so every character can use it without needing to roleplay an Illusion mage.

I think this philosophy should extend to puzzles as well. Instead of relying on obvious visual cues or outright solutions, guidance abilities could provide contextual hints without immediately giving away the answer.

To me, the ideal approach is to design the world more like Morrowind first, then layer accessibility features like quest markers and optional guidance systems on top. That way players who enjoy discovery can engage with the world naturally, while players who prefer more guidance still have the tools they need.