Skyrim co-lead claims The Elder Scrolls 6's helm was once promised to him, and he envisioned a plot mirroring the best Star Wars film

According to long-time Bethesda developer and Skyrim co-lead designer Kurt Kuhlmann, he was originally told he’d be leading the charge on basting the great turkey that is the The Elder Scrolls 6. That didn’t end up coming to pass and, having left Bethesda back in 2023, the developer’s now spilled the beans as to the sort of story he envisioned the follow-up to The Elder Scrolls 6 telling.

According to Kuhlmann in a chat with PC Gamer, Todd Howard verbally promised him this role in the aftermath Skyrim’s release. At that point, a return to the Elder Scrolls was pencilled in to be next up once Fallout 4 was out of the door – the studio instead ended up taking lengthy detours to make Fallout 76 and Starfield.

“It wasn’t just my expectation – I had been told that that was going to happen. And they made the decision, no, you’re not going to be the lead.” Kuhlmann recalled. “So, Todd said, ‘Well, we want you to have an important role in the project.’ But what I wanted and what he wanted were different at that point.” While he does cite it as a factor in his decision to leave Bethesda for his current gig, alongside changes in the likes of communication process during development that the company’s growth in size over time has brought about, the developer said with hindsight that he reckons he might not have enjoyed being lead on the game.

As for the direction he might have taken its story in had he been in charge of shaping that, Kuhlmann pointed to The Empire Strikes Back. As Skyrim’s events heavily foreshadow, the Thalmor-led Aldmeri Dominion – lead by elven supremacists seeking control over all of Tamriel – would be making more strides towards that goal. Rather than being an all-powerful “chosen one” directly standing up to this enemy, the player would instead have more lowkey role, with the ending involving them keeping hope for an eventual victory in a future Elder Scrolls entry by succeeding in a task like keeping a handy heir alive.

However, that last part is something the developer’s not sure would have worked or gotten the thumbs up, since it leans into unhappy ending or cliffhanger territory, with the pace of game releases nowadays making ending on such notes for a game this size a potentially unpopular choice.

All in all, the broad strokes Kuhlmann outlines for his story are the sort of path I’ve long seen Skyrim as pointing the series’ narrative in, minus perhaps the protagonist’s power being limited to ‘person who can’t use world-shattering abilities to destroy the bad right now’. Whether that would have made for a great Elder Scrolls game is something we’ll likely never know unless the dev has just accidentally revealed what happens to be Bethesda’s current plan too.

My money’s very much on an adventure which revolves around that mudcrab merchant from Morrowind taking over Tamriel by buying up all of its prominent beverage-making businesses and then somehow tanking the stocks in every other industry on the Imperial City exchange. Some tale set in the Summerset Isles would also probably be cool.