Phil Spencer Suggests The Elder Scrolls 6 Will Be Xbox Exclusive Title

In an interview with British GQ, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer seems to confirm that The Elder Scrolls VI will be released exclusively for the Xbox platform. It’s not presented as an established fact, but judging by the words it almost certainly looks like an Xbox exclusive.

The interview includes a short passage in which the editor of GQ paraphrases statements by Spencer. From this it becomes clear that the Xbox CEO also envisions Starfield’s scenario for The Elder Scrolls VI. Starfield will be a major new sci-fi franchise for Bethesda and Microsoft, and it’s already been confirmed to be an Xbox platform exclusive. It will be out next November and it promises to be one of the biggest games of that year.

Spencer says in a statement that it is “not about punishing any other platform.” “I fundamentally believe that all platforms can continue to grow. But in order to be on Xbox, I want us to be able to deploy the full package of what we have. And that’s the case when I think of Elder Scrolls VI. That’s the case when I think about any of our franchises.”

Here he is referring to the full package of features and options that the Xbox ecosystem offers, with Spencer mentioning Xbox Live, Game Pass, Cloud Gaming, friend lists and save states. Such a full range of Xbox features and platform capabilities surrounding The Elder Scrolls VI probably wouldn’t have been possible if the game wasn’t playable exclusively on Xbox, or so the suggestion seems.

Further substantive details about The Elder Scrolls VI as a game were barely given, except for the note that the basis of Starfield’s technology provides the next-gen features for The Elder Scrolls VI. That comment is not from Spencer, by the way, but from Todd Howard. He is a game director at Bethesda Game Studios; the editor spoke to others like Howard after the conversation with Spencer. The Elder Scrolls VI is still in a very early stage of development; it will probably be another five years before the game comes out.

Spencer already indicated in March that some new Bethesda games will only come to Xbox and PC, but no names were mentioned at that time. That changed in June and it became clear that Starfield will be an exclusive for the Xbox Series consoles and PC. This uncertainty about the availability of Bethesda titles for all platforms stems from Microsoft’s previous acquisition of Bethesda. This gave Microsoft not only popular franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake, but also new, yet to be released titles.

It’s been exactly ten years since The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim came out. That happened in November 2011 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows. The expanded game with a Medieval fantasy-setting game brought Bethesda great success and has been re-released many times since then. This concerns versions for, for example, the Nintendo Switch or an improved version for the latest consoles.

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