Fed up waiting for Elder Scrolls 6, these devs are just making their own

With Elder Scrolls 6 still firmly in the "it exists, we promise" stage of development, at least one indie studio has decided to stop waiting and take matters into their own hands. As reported by GamesRadar, a team of RPG developers has essentially called out Todd Howard while announcing their own Elder Scrolls-inspired game - describing their project as a "Scrolls-like."

The framing is hard not to love. While the industry has spent years flooding the market with Soulslikes, this studio is planting a flag in distinctly different territory, drawing heavy inspiration from the classic Elder Scrolls formula - particularly the deep, immersive RPG design that defined games like Morrowind. The GamesRadar piece describes the developers as "wearing the skin of Morrowind like a jacket," which is equal parts unsettling and accurate.

Why now makes sense

Elder Scrolls 6 was announced back in 2018 and has barely surfaced since. Bethesda's focus on Starfield and the continued life support of Skyrim - now available on what feels like every device including your refrigerator - has left a genuine gap in the market for old-school, exploration-driven RPGs with that specific Bethesda flavor.

That gap is exactly what this studio is aiming to fill. The "Scrolls-like" label is a smart piece of positioning - it signals to a very specific and passionate audience exactly what kind of experience they're building, without needing a lengthy explanation. Morrowind in particular has a devoted fanbase that still argues it represents the creative high point of the series, so leaning into that legacy is a calculated move.

The broader trend worth watching

This isn't entirely unprecedented territory. Games like Enderal (a total conversion of Skyrim) and various indie RPGs have chased that Elder Scrolls feeling before. But openly branding your game as a Scrolls-like - and doing it with a direct jab at Bethesda's glacial development pace - feels like a new level of confidence from the indie space.

Whether the finished product can actually capture what makes the Elder Scrolls series special remains to be seen. Building that sense of a living, breathing world with genuine exploration and player freedom is genuinely hard to pull off. But the ambition is there, the target audience is hungry, and Todd Howard is presumably somewhere not losing sleep about it - which is probably the correct response when your last mainline Elder Scrolls game came out in 2011.

More details on the project are expected to surface as development continues. Keep an eye on GamesRadar for updates.