Given that it is a franchise tradition at this point, there’s little doubt that The Elder Scrolls 6 will dangle plenty of unsolvable mysteries in front of the player base. That said, it’ll also be a great opportunity to solve a few of the series holdovers—especially from Skyrim. And given the game’s rumored setting, a perfect mystery for The Elder Scrolls 6 to shed some light on would be that of the Eye of Magnus, an enormous glowing orb Skyrim was thrilled to set the entire College of Winterhold questline around, yet completely unwilling to explain.
Indeed, the next installment of The Elder Scrolls franchise might be setting up shop right next door to some potential answers as to what the Eye of Magnus truly is. Particularly, because the game’s rumored settings—which have leaned toward Hammerfell or High Rock for years—are two regions that happen to sit within reach of one of Tamriel’s oldest and strangest landmarks, the Adamantine Tower. If Bethesda ever wants to pry the lid off the Eye of Magnus, that landmark would provide the ideal neighborhood in which to do it.
Skyrim and the Eye of Magnus
Backing up a bit, though, it’s worth retreading Skyrim a bit here for context, because the Eye’s on-screen story is shorter than it is interesting. During the College questline, the Dragonborn hauls the strange artifact up from the ruins of Saarthal, a Thalmor agent named Ancano taps into its power and turns hostile, and the Psijic Order eventually arrives to spirit the thing away because the world “is not ready for it.” From that point onward, the Eye is simply gone, and the credits roll on that plotline.
The game never bothers to tell you what the Eye actually is, what it does, or where the Psijic Order took it. Tolfdir, the clear best of Winterhold’s educators, openly admits the markings on it aren’t Dwemer, Falmer, Ayleid, or Daedric, which rules out most of the usual suspects while answering absolutely nothing. But these dangling questions are arguably the largest loose magical threads Skyrim leaves lying around, because despite all the vagaries, it’s incredibly clear that the Eye of Magnus is incredibly powerful.
What Fans Actually Know About the Eye of Magnus
It’s been well over a decade since Skyrim wrapped up, so there are a few things we do know, or can ascertain, about the Eye of Magnus. For one, it’s very likely Aedric in origin—that would best fit the name—and it’s bound up somehow with the Staff of Magnus, the only object said to reliably contain it. Conversely, when the Eye is unstable, it carries enough raw power to unmake or destroy the world outright.
The Eye of Magnus is also magically potent enough to mask other relics on a Dwemer detection device the Synod use, drowning out the energy of other legendary artifacts like Auriel’s Bow entirely.
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Image via Bethesda -
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Image via Bethesda
Given what we know (or how much we don’t), the setup for The Elder Scrolls 6 is actually quite simple. If the game lands in Hammerfell or High Rock, its story unfolds beside the Iliac Bay, and out in that bay sits the Isle of Balfiera and the Adamantine Tower. That tower happens to be the oldest known structure in all of Tamriel, or very close to it.
Indeed, the next installment of The Elder Scrolls franchise might be setting up shop right next door to some potential answers as to what the Eye of Magnus truly is.
The Adamantine Tower would be relevant to the Eye because it is tied up with Magnus himself, too. The surface layer of series lore holds that this is where the gods convened to discuss the creation of Mundus, and it is closely tied to the moment Magnus, the mortal world’s chief architect, took his leave of it. His departure tore the hole in the sky that became the sun, and the spirits who followed him out became the Magna Ge, whose own exits left behind the stars.
It may rely on some less than 100% confirmed speculation, but put a Magnus-linked artifact into a game set beside a Magnus-linked tower, and the potential connections are pretty obvious, despite the gap in location between these two Aedric remnants. Bethesda would have a natural, in-world reason to finally address where the Eye came from, what it was meant for, and whether it loops back to the same act of creation that produced the sun and the stars. Whether the studio takes that bait is another matter, but the pieces have so far lined up quite cleanly.
Where Existing Theories Get Fun
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Image via Zenimax/Bethesda
And in the massive gap between games, fans have already had a field day theorizing about the Eye’s true nature, so it isn’t like players aren’t curious. Some of these guesses are wonderfully strange, too: one popular idea beyond the powerful artifact angle is that the Eye is an unfinished artificial sun Magnus was building for a world he had not yet decided to abandon. Another treats it more like a capsule or a seed, a container holding power with a far more specific purpose than being generically powerful.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.
Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)
My personal favorite of the bunch leans on the name itself. It suggests that the Eye of Magnus is literally an eye, a magical lens Magnus used to watch Mundus from some metaphysical vantage point. It dovetails neatly with the Khajiit myth surrounding that race’s pantheon, where the equivalent god Magrus loses an eye and tumbles from the heavens, which is a suspicious amount of thematic smoke for there to be no fire.
There’s also the Thalmor angle to all of this, which tracks given Ancano’s presence, but it is where the speculation gets ambitious. Some fans connect the Eye to the elves’ rumored endgame involving the Towers and their collapse, with an artifact this powerful cast in a starring role. There is no promise The Elder Scrolls 6 will ever confirm the Thalmor’s master plan, so the safe read for now is that they simply hoard powerful relics, and the Eye slots onto that shelf comfortably.
Bethesda Is Holding All the Cards
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Image by GameRant | Image sources: Bethesda Game Studios -
Image via Bethesda -
The beauty of a mystery this open is that Bethesda can do almost anything with it. The studio could deliver a clean origin story, casually retcon the whole thing, or leave the Eye exactly where the Psijic Order stashed it and never mention it again. Any of those outcomes would be in character for a series that treats its deepest lore as a buffet rather than a syllabus, but I certainly have a preference for the former over the latter.
Whether the studio takes that bait is another matter, but the pieces have so far lined up quite cleanly.
Especially given that what makes the Eye worth chasing is that the journey has stayed fun the deeper into conspiracy it has gone. Whether The Elder Scrolls 6 finally cracks the case in the shadow of that ancient tower or simply adds another delicious layer of uncertainty, it’s neat that the speculation has provided its own reward. But if The Elder Scrolls 6 can actually shed some light on the Eye of Magnus, it really would prove that sometimes the most memorable mysteries are the ones a game is confident enough to leave glowing in the dark.
- 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
