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Skyrim and Starfield veteran says it's 'almost impossible' for The Elder Scrolls 6 to meet expectations

Former Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith warns that the expectations for The Elder Scrolls 6 are almost impossible to meet due to the legacy of Skyrim, even if the game is amazing, resulting in a challenge for Bethesda's marketing department.

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Skyrim was released over a decade ago, raising the bar for open-world games in 2012 and beyond. However, it also raised the expectations for Bethesda and all of its titles since then, including the highly anticipated Elder Scrolls 6. So much so, in fact that, former Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith says it's "almost impossible" for those expectations to be met – even if it turns out to be amazing.

Even if The Elder Scrolls 6 checks most of the boxes for players when it releases, it will inevitably be compared to every game that has come before, and especially Skyrim. Nesmith discusses this problem in an interview with Kiwi Talkz.

"You know, the 30-year-old who is making a piece of art who's a professional artist, he can't control the expectation because he's got all this history," he says. "It's there whether he likes it or not, and the same is true for the fans who want to buy Elder Scrolls 6, their expectations are going to be almost impossible to meet."

Nesmith believes that The Elder Scrolls 6 will "undoubtedly" be "an amazing game," but it will also be compared against Bethesda's extensive catalog, and managing expectations for a title as big as The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be challenging for everyone involved in the project. According to Nesmith, these are the situations in which "marketing departments just put their heads in their hands and weep."

As games continue to become larger in scale and scope, the expectations from players will likely only continue to rise with every newly released game, which will be something developers and publishers will need to reckon with.

If you're looking for more information, be sure to check out everything we know so far about The Elder Scrolls 6.