The Elder Scrolls 6 has been hanging over the industry for so long that the question of where we’ll actually be able to play it almost feels secondary to when we’ll finally get to play it. Still, the platform conversation hasn’t gone anywhere, especially now that Bethesda is firmly under Xbox and Microsoft is still trying to figure out exactly what an “Xbox exclusive” is supposed to mean. At some point, though, The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have to land on one side of that conversation or the other.
And really, I can see the argument both ways. Xbox could absolutely use a game this big to give people a reason to invest in its ecosystem, especially when The Elder Scrolls 6 already has the kind of name recognition most exclusives could only dream of. At the same time, this is a series that was multiplatform long before Microsoft ever owned Bethesda, so suddenly shutting part of that audience out would be a pretty significant change.
For the sake of this list, “Xbox exclusive” means a console exclusive, with PC still included.
10
Why It Should Be: Xbox Needs Games That Make Its Hardware Matter
Xbox has spent years making it clear that the brand is much bigger than the console underneath someone’s TV, and I understand the reasoning behind that. If people can play Xbox games on PC, through the cloud, or somewhere else entirely, Microsoft still gets them into the ecosystem. The problem is that there is still an Xbox console sitting on store shelves, and eventually, there needs to be a reason for someone to pick that one over everything else.
Honestly, The Elder Scrolls 6 could easily be that reason. This isn’t a new IP that still needs years to build an audience, and Bethesda doesn’t need to convince people that another Elder Scrolls game might be worth playing. People have already been waiting for this one for years. If Xbox really wants a game that can make its hardware feel important again, it already owns one of the best candidates possible.
This is where exclusivity starts to get a little uncomfortable. The Elder Scrolls didn’t become a Bethesda franchise after Microsoft bought the company, and plenty of people who have spent years with the series did so on PlayStation. Taking the next numbered entry away from those players wouldn’t feel quite the same as Xbox creating a brand-new exclusive from the ground up.
Skyrim especially became one of those games that seemed to show up everywhere eventually, and that reach has become part of what The Elder Scrolls is at this point. That’s why I think there is a pretty big difference between keeping a new Xbox franchise exclusive and taking a series with an existing multiplatform audience and suddenly putting a wall around it. Microsoft can obviously do that if it wants to, but that doesn’t mean longtime fans are going to be happy about it.
Put the consoles in the correct order.
8
Why It Should Be: Microsoft Didn’t Buy Bethesda for Nothing
Microsoft spent a lot of money bringing Bethesda and its franchises under Xbox, and while exclusivity obviously wasn’t the only reason for that acquisition, it’s hard not to wonder when one of those franchises is actually going to be used to make Xbox itself more appealing. If every major Bethesda game eventually ends up everywhere anyway, owning the studio starts to feel a little different from what people originally imagined when the deal happened.
That doesn’t mean Microsoft suddenly needs to lock every Bethesda game away. There is a huge difference between making everything exclusive and deciding that one or two of the company’s biggest franchises should actually give Xbox an advantage. If there is ever going to be a Bethesda game that does that, The Elder Scrolls 6 feels like one of the most obvious choices.
7
Why It Shouldn’t Be: Xbox Has Spent Years Reaching More Players
The weird thing is that exclusivity would also go against a lot of what Xbox has been doing lately. Microsoft has spent years taking games that once would have been locked to its own ecosystem and putting them elsewhere, which makes the idea of suddenly drawing a hard line around The Elder Scrolls 6 feel a little strange.
That’s not to say Xbox can’t still have exclusives, because it clearly can. But The Elder Scrolls 6 would be one of the biggest tests of what Microsoft’s strategy actually looks like when a truly massive game is involved. It’s easy to talk about reaching more players until doing that means giving up one of the strongest exclusives you could possibly have.
There are some games people try because they’re already subscribed to Game Pass, and then there are games that could convince someone to subscribe in the first place. I have a hard time imagining The Elder Scrolls 6 falling into the first category. If anything, this is exactly the kind of game Microsoft would want sitting front and center when it’s trying to show people why Game Pass is worth paying for.
Exclusivity would only make that argument stronger. If someone can buy The Elder Scrolls 6 on whatever platform they’re already using, there isn’t nearly as much reason to think about Xbox at all. Keep it inside the Xbox ecosystem, though, and suddenly Game Pass becomes one of the easiest ways into one of the most anticipated RPGs around.
5
Why It Shouldn’t Be: Microsoft Would Be Leaving a Lot of Sales Behind
The problem with using The Elder Scrolls 6 as bait for the Xbox ecosystem is that Microsoft would also be turning away a lot of people who are perfectly willing to buy the game somewhere else. This is almost certainly going to be a massive launch whenever it finally happens, so every console left out of the equation represents a pretty significant group of potential customers.
Maybe Microsoft decides the long-term value of bringing people into Xbox is worth more than those individual sales. I can see that argument. But there’s also something incredibly simple about selling The Elder Scrolls 6 to as many people as possible and letting one of Bethesda’s biggest franchises make as much money as it can. Sometimes the less complicated option makes plenty of sense.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Easy (120s)Medium (90s)Hard (60s)
4
Why It Should Be: Fewer Console Versions Could Make Bethesda’s Job Easier
I wouldn’t pretend that making The Elder Scrolls 6 an Xbox console exclusive would suddenly guarantee a flawless launch, because Bethesda games have taught us better than that. Still, this is probably going to be a massive game, and every additional platform means another version that needs to be optimized and tested before it gets into players’ hands.
Removing one console family from the equation at least gives Bethesda one less thing to worry about. PC brings enough variables on its own, so it’s not like development suddenly becomes simple, but there is still a difference between supporting fewer pieces of hardware and trying to make everything work everywhere at once. For a game that will already have plenty working against it, I can see why Microsoft might prefer the smaller target.
3
Why It Shouldn’t Be: Exclusivity Could Become the Story Instead of the Game
The Elder Scrolls 6 is already going to have more pressure on it than most games could ever handle. People have been waiting for this thing for years, and once Bethesda finally starts showing it properly, every detail is going to be picked apart before anyone even gets the chance to play it. The game really doesn’t need another controversy piled on top of everything else.
Making it exclusive would almost guarantee one. Suddenly, a huge part of the conversation wouldn’t be about the world, the quests, or whether Bethesda actually managed to live up to expectations. It would be about who can’t play it. A multiplatform release obviously wouldn’t stop people from arguing over The Elder Scrolls 6, but at least the argument could be about the game itself.
2
Why It Should Be: Xbox Needs a True System Seller
This is probably the best argument Xbox has for keeping The Elder Scrolls 6 to itself. Microsoft owns plenty of recognizable games, but there aren’t many releases that could genuinely make someone reconsider what platform they’re playing on. The Elder Scrolls 6 could.
That’s what the biggest exclusives are supposed to do. They make the hardware feel like it has something you can’t get anywhere else, and Xbox could certainly use more of that right now. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be a big deal regardless of where it launches, but if Microsoft wants it to be a big deal specifically for Xbox, exclusivity is the easiest way to make that happen.
Ultimately, this is the side I keep coming back to. The Elder Scrolls has spent years becoming bigger than any one platform, and Skyrim is probably the best evidence of that. Bethesda released it so many times that it eventually became a running joke, but people kept buying those versions because there was always another audience willing to jump in.
That’s why locking The Elder Scrolls 6 to Xbox feels strange even when I understand exactly why Microsoft might want to do it. Xbox could absolutely use a game this big as an exclusive, and there is no denying how valuable that would be for the platform. At the same time, after waiting this long for another mainline Elder Scrolls, I’d rather see as many people as possible finally get their hands on it. There will be plenty to argue about once the game arrives anyway. Which console someone owns doesn’t really need to be one of those things.
- Released
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2026
- ESRB
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m
- Developer(s)
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Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher(s)
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Bethesda Softworks
