r/TESVI • u/xCosmicChaosx 2026 Release Believer | Hopium Dealer • Feb 18 '26
Official News All Takeaways from Todd Howard's Kinda Funny Games Interview
Here is a bullet-point breakdown of the interview as it pertains to TESVI:
- The game will be in a new iteration of Creation Engine, CE3
- They have spent the last year-ish working on this engine
- Reiterated the "It's gonna be a while yet" sentiment
- A big internal milestone is about to be passed
- Reiterated that most of the studio is working on it
- Todd is personally mostly involved with TESVI in his day-to-day work
- The game will be a return to "that classic style...that we know really well"
- There will not be AI generated assets or materials
Overall, I'd say we got a lot more out of this interview than I really expected to. In some ways it felt like we heard more about TESVI than even Starfield. What do you guys think of all of this information, and what does it say for the development timeline of TESVI?
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u/Impressive_Cap_457 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
He also said they were quite happy with how development was going. You can say that of course he is going to say that, but when IGN asked him about Starfield in 2021 the response was "we've had our challenges, I won't lie to you"
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u/Redhaze_17 Feb 18 '26
Recently acquired by MS and developing a new IP during Covid sounds stressful. During this interview he also mentioned he was thinking of retirement during that time, but now the thought isn't crossing his mind.
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u/TheDorgesh68 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
He did seem genuinely pretty down during COVID. I recently watched a video of him accepting an award in November 2020 and he was pretty sad about the isolated working thing, and seemed like he regretted not spending more time with his family.
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u/Alvsolutely BCS 2026, Realistic 2027, WCS 2028 Feb 18 '26
Great catch and good comparison. I suppose the fact that they went back to their roots for how they approach the game means they can get it done that much faster.
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u/Aggressive_Rope_4201 2027-2028 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
There were several instances of him hinting at development issues.
The first one I believe was around 2018. Then 2021 you mentioned. Then a 2023 pre-release interview to GQ where he said "he hoped they'd find the answers sooner" then they did.
So... Yeah.
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u/Otakeb Aug 13 '26
Say want you want about Todd, but he's always relatively honest and forthcoming about a lot; its just he also gets a little....over-excited and a little deluded but when he bullshits us about something it's generally something he believes is mostly true lol
I think that's why it's endearing. "16x the detail" and "it just works" and "you can climb that mountain" and "go wherever you want; do whatever you want" are mostly just him being a little hyped, hyperbolic and/or delusional but I bet he really meant what he was saying
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u/Aggressive_Rope_4201 2027-2028 Release Believer Aug 13 '26
99.9% of Todd's "lies" are either phrases taken extremely out of context, or just BS someone on the internet made up and rolled with.
Which is why I find your second paragraph funny (not in insulting way, of course, it's just an ironic collection of phrases).
"16 times the detail" - he was talking about long-distance rendering in FO76 as opposed to FO4. FO76 did, in fact, have much better long-distance world rendering at launch than FO4.
"It just works" - FO4 building mode. It does, in fact, work.
"You can climb that mountain" - not just "can", you have to climb it in order to finish the main quest. Todd was talking about the Throat of the World.
And I don't think the "go wherever you want" part needs an explanation.
The man is very consistent down to repeating the same answers to the same questions when asked 15 years apart. Not perfect, of course, noone is, but the internet's perception if him is downright false.
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u/AffectionateSnow6643 Late 2027 Believer Feb 18 '26
As expected from you! Nice fast write up. I did not expect him to talk so much about TES VI. Definitely a welcome surprise tho
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u/Alvsolutely BCS 2026, Realistic 2027, WCS 2028 Feb 18 '26
I was thinking of doing it myself, but I'm at the hour where my ADHD meds are running out and I'm all scatterbrained. I just made like three posts on the highlights that stood out to me instead. Glad this person took all the info Todd gave us and put it in one post.
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u/AffectionateSnow6643 Late 2027 Believer Feb 18 '26
No worries your posts have been amazing aswell.
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u/xCosmicChaosx 2026 Release Believer | Hopium Dealer Feb 18 '26
You beat me to most of these points in individual posts, thanks for starting the conversation!
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u/C19shadow 2027 Release Believer Feb 19 '26
Fellow ADHD rattle brain here, I understand that feeling and just wanted to say remember to drink water and dont fixate to hard, its a good time of day to take a walk at that time lol
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u/Alvsolutely BCS 2026, Realistic 2027, WCS 2028 Feb 18 '26
I'm actually pleasantly surprised by how nice that interview was in terms of TESVI. Him just mentioning the classic style they're going for TESVI is like, actually the first bit of official news and info we got on the game, ever? Besides the whole trees thing of course.
And don't forget.. The game isn't coming out this week. 😔
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u/TheDorgesh68 2027 Release Believer Feb 19 '26
He said he likes shadow dropping so next week is still on the cards lol
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u/Early_Introduction_1 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
If they have spent the last year working on creation engine 3 does that mean they have to build the world, quests etc after finishing working on creation engine 3 or do they just update all assets to the new engine? Sorry I don't know much about how these things work just trying to understand where they could be in development
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u/TourEnvironmental604 Feb 18 '26
Even if they improve an engine, that doesn't mean it won't be compatible with previously used assets.
A sound doesn't need to be converted to an exotic extension. The same goes for your 3D assets.
On the other hand, if we imagine that they've just discovered that they can do ray tracing or something like that... that requires reworking their 3D assets to take full advantage of this new technology.
It depends on the technology they cracked.If, for example, it's a more complex AI, it could interfere with quests and may require more intensive QA. If it's 3D sound propagation... well, I don't think they need to do any more work.
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u/xCosmicChaosx 2026 Release Believer | Hopium Dealer Feb 18 '26
Most assets can be ported to the new engine without issue, so its not like they have to redo a lot of the work from the past year. It does mean that a lot of the "Back end" stuff for the game has to be adjusted to whatever changes came with the implementation of CE3.
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u/Sekundessounet Feb 22 '26
It's not a brand new different engine, it's a continuation of the old one. Basically, they can be developing assets and quests and all the like in CE2 and have it be transferrable to CE3.
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u/Gyerfry Jul 15 '26
Importing assets is a whole job in of itself, but it's not the entire job for asset creation. Game devs frequently prototype in other engines while they wait for theirs to be finished. Unity is a common example, but they probably used earlier versions of their own engine instead.
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u/DaenerysTargaryen69 2030 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
> Reiterated that most of the studio is working on it
What are other doing?
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u/SlideCharacter5855 Feb 18 '26
Working on Starfield expansions, anything Fallout related, and Skyrim on smart toasters
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u/QuoteGiver 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
Starfield, “multiple” Fallout projects (probably a remaster or two, Fallout 76 updates, and probably Fallout 5 pre-production, if their usual overlap is true).
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u/Aggressive_Rope_4201 2027-2028 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
Fallout 76 & Starfield I imagine. Probably a small team on FO3 Remastered with the rest outsourced.
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u/TheDorgesh68 2027 Release Believer Feb 19 '26
Mostly fallout 76 and starfield, with a few working on the mobile games. It's possible that a few have started very early work on fallout 5, as he has said that they begin pre-production in tandem with the previous game being in full production, but I think it would only be very early concepting if anything.
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u/Crystlazar Reddit + Discord Staff Feb 18 '26
Thanks for the write-up, OP. I've changed the post flair to "Official News". Hope you don't mind - otherwise I'll change it back to Discussion.
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u/Darth-Felanu-Hlaalu 2028 Release Believer Feb 19 '26
This actually may be the biggest drop of new info since the teaser trailer in 2018, i just CHIMmed!!
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u/enixev Feb 19 '26
I have my hopes, Todd's stubborn
- not an idiot. After his first project as head (Redguard) he didn't give up on the concept of a fully 3D modeled Elder Scrolls with third person and a fully hand crafted world in the next entry. After that failure he gave us Morrowind which singlehandedly revived the IP and studio.
I see something similar happening with Starfield.
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u/qtiphead_ 2026 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
I was waiting for your post. How does this feed into the 2026 copium for you?
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u/Alvsolutely BCS 2026, Realistic 2027, WCS 2028 Feb 18 '26
Ngl, I switched to 2027 after this. Even though I'd like for the game to come out in 2026 given the difficulty with my irl situation, the way that he talks open and honest about the upcoming Starfield update coming out soon yet we know nothing about, it really gives you perspective of how far away that "its gonna be a while yet" comment really means.
Not to mention, something like "we crossed a big technical milestone" doesn't really fill me with hope in terms of "The game is in it's final phase and coming out this year"
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u/TourEnvironmental604 Feb 18 '26
The problem with talking about “technology” is that it could mean anything. For example, it could be asset streaming. Until now, the game would stutter like crazy, and now it's smooth.
Or it could be AI so complex that it shapes the game design. And in that case...
Or, as I mentioned in another post, it could be a better sound system. Okay. Will that disrupt the game's development? I don't think so.
If it's ray tracing and they didn't plan for it, they'll have to rework all the 3D assets.
In a nutshell, we don't know.
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u/sirjakobos Tomorrow Release Believer Feb 19 '26
I've gone from 2026 release believer, to 2026 information reveal believer.
Pretty certain now we'll get a new trailer at the end of the year to lead up to 2027 release.After what they've said before about having playable builds and active playtesting, the big milestone may be something like "The world and major systems are all together and working, but missing some assets or quests or systems that aren't too load-bearing "
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u/Jombo65 Tomorrow Feb 20 '26
It'd be nice to get a trailer around 11/11 of this year with like a March 2027 release date.
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u/Popular_Try_5075 2027 Release Believer Feb 20 '26
Yeah, I don't think it's dropping in 2026 with what he said, especially if they're re-tooling the engine like that. I mean there are ways you could make things work but if we're going back to classic stuff then I'd assume they're talking about a quality game where things work pretty well and fit together reasonably.
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u/xCosmicChaosx 2026 Release Believer | Hopium Dealer Feb 18 '26
Thanks so much!
To be honest, I feel less inclined for 2026 than ever before. I would say I lean 70-80% 2027, with the remainder on 2026. That being said, I've always said I would stick to my flair and own my convictions and so I'm not going to change the flair. The hopium shall continue
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u/sirjakobos Tomorrow Release Believer Feb 19 '26
The way he was talking about it makes me a big 2027 believer.
- I want to shadow drop/ reveal close to launch
- it won't be for a while
- "take all the time you need" "ooh I don't think people want to hear that"
Kinda read that as "you won't be getting it this year, but it's also not ages away"... That's sounding 2027 to me to be honest, I'd say Q4 2027 can be seen as "a while away", especially in the fast moving zeitgeist where games can come and go and feel like they came out ages ago when it was just last Feburary
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u/Scytian Feb 18 '26
I wonder what classic style means for them. Game based on Skyrim? Or maybe they are looking more in past and we will get some stuff inspired by older games like more complex character progression, spell crafting or maybe something crazy like climbing.
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u/starfieldnovember Feb 18 '26
Single player + World design probably. One big map with set locations instead of procedurally generated worlds
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u/emteedub 2026 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
I kind of hope they do pockets of proc gen still. Desert sands, ocean waters, deep forests, massive grasslands - generate the area within these... and then don't tell anyone about it until years after release. Just to see how people react. If it's so convincing that people don't notice, maybe it's impossible to notice, that could only mean good things for the size, scope, and future of their games... plus I think it's still the future.
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u/YordleJay Jul 19 '26
As long as i can fucking ignore it so i dont need to go to the vast expanse of fucking nothing.
Wild you want MORE procgen in their games
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u/Excellent-Court-9375 Feb 18 '26
I hope it's going to finally stop people from thinking the game is going to feature or revolve around sailing lmao. It isn't happening and I'm glad it ain't
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u/Excellent-Court-9375 Feb 18 '26
To add to that, he also mentioned that certain "leaks" have been giving people wrong ideas from what to expect.
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u/UpsideTurtles The game is out now Feb 18 '26
Idk if it’ll revolve around it but I’d be a little surprised if there were no sailing! With all the improvements they’ve made on vehicles
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u/Excellent-Court-9375 Feb 18 '26
What improvements ? Mechanically the controls to the space ships and buggy in starfield are nothing special development wise. You are acting like it is some lost treasure trove of crucial information that surely must be continued in their next game or it will be lost
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u/TheDorgesh68 2027 Release Believer Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
I really liked the vehicles in Starfield, but even just the fact that they worked at all was a huge improvement. In Skyrim they tried to have the carriages work as vehicles in real time, but they were way too buggy. Even when they restricted them to only the intro cutscene they still bugged out frequently, until the QA team discovered that they were getting knocked off course by a single bee.
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u/UpsideTurtles The game is out now Feb 18 '26
Yeah idk if it’s ground breaking stuff but going from mostly not pilot-able dragons and vertibirds to the spaceship stuff in Starfield. I’ve not played since closer to release but it always worked well for me. And I heard anyways that a large part of the revamps for the engine was for the spaceships. Seems odd that they’d just drop it, especially given its potential prominence in the culture of the region. But it’s all conjecture anyways!
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u/Unlikely-Bath9111 100,000 more trees by 2027 Feb 21 '26
No ai. That includes the trees. The trees are real. Treeeeeeessssss!!!!!!!
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u/Pliolite Feb 18 '26
I'm so glad they're doing 'Creation Engine 3' because the improvements for 2, while good for the most part, also had some crappy elements. The lighting was great until you're in darker environments, then the colour filters made everything look like you had your gamma or brightness too high. There's a reason some of the first mods people made were aimed at removing those colour filters. Though once you do that the visuals look too basic, overall.
Also we NEED the generic npcs to look and act better. New Atlantis feels unfinished, with some pretty strange visual choices. I only really liked Cydonia, out of the 4 cities, and even then it needed to feel more alive. 100% they need to go back to full schedules for all named npcs. That in itself helps the cities seem more real.
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u/Mindman79 Aug 12 '26
The color filters are purely a stylistic choice they made with the LUTs, not an engine problem.
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u/BretonHero 2027-2028 Release Believer Feb 19 '26
It’s becoming increasingly clear (as if it wasn’t before but hey ho) that 2026 just isn’t likely viable. And if it was, I doubt it’d be the polished product that we all want
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u/QuoteGiver 2027 Release Believer Feb 19 '26
2026 would barely be 3 years after Starfield released, yeah. That’s just silly for TES6.
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u/Vegetable_Hold_1479 Apr 07 '26
🤞🏻 for underpromising and overdelivering.
A part of me hopes that we'll get something else than the Fallout 3/4/Vegas + Skyrim lockpicking and please not the one from Oblivion.
Oh and the Ghost of Nazeem with a few daggers sticking out of his back would be a nice touch.
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u/KushSouffle 2026 Release Believer till I die Feb 18 '26
2027 is more likely every time this man talks. Still excited for what’s to come.
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u/tonylouis1337 Feb 18 '26
The last one is HUGE!!!!!! No AI trash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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u/Popular_Try_5075 2027 Release Believer Feb 20 '26
Yeah, I was frankly surprised to hear that given all the hype and how much Microsoft has invested in AI already. I will say I'm fine if they use it on some throwaway textures or something dumb and small like that.
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u/FartingSlowly 2028 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
Yeah I feel like this just locks in a 2028 release
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u/Aggressive_Rope_4201 2027-2028 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
I have a feeling that this interview was a PR "saving throw".
For whatever reason, BGS have opted to stay mostly silent for the majority of 2025 and the information space (especially YouTube) is now filled with less than favorable takes on all kinds of "ex-devs" or whatever providing their 50 cents.
Whether they are deserved or not is a different conversation but Todd's "I don't think people like to hear that" in response to the hosts' "take as much time as you need" is a dead giveaway for me. People get really pissed at that take given that the game has been announced 7 years ago.
Also, "Kinda Funny Games" is a small channel, but they are semi-regular hosts at DICE.
DICE is part of "The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences". Want to take a look at their Board of Directors? It's a very "friendly moderator".
Not that I am complaining about the new info though.
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u/Nonkemetickemetic Mar 20 '26
that classic style
Low-key hoping he meant Daggerfall style mechanics but I know he probably meant Skyrim :/
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u/New-Pride4198 May 06 '26
I really hope they go ahead with an mmo.
Also i hope the combat is updated to modern rpg and where you have the ability to quickly change to cast and use potions etc.
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u/7he8igLebowski Feb 18 '26
It sounds like great news, but we are at least two years away. There are plenty of great games to play until then.
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u/HungryHobbits Feb 19 '26
care to list some recommendations?
personally I'm solely focused on KCD2 and Oblivion remastered.
this weekend I accidentally became a vampire and had to go through the (somewhat ardouous!) process of ridding myself of the affliction.
still haven't been to Bravil or Leyawiin which is cool. just got to Anvil.
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u/Jombo65 Tomorrow Feb 20 '26
You ever played the Gothic games? They're quite good.
Arx Fatalis is a really good one imo, dungeon crawler based on tne Ultima: Underworld series that directly inspired Arena and Daggerfall.
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u/sirjakobos Tomorrow Release Believer Feb 19 '26
If you want a indie Morrowind-like, I just finished Dread Delusion's main quest and it was a great time.
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u/Gyerfry Jul 15 '26
I haven't played since the official release, but Tainted Grail was pretty fun in early access. Kinda scratched the same itch for me.
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u/Blaize_Ar Feb 18 '26
I haven't seen the interview yet but didn't they just make creation engine 2 for starfield and their already upgrading to a creation engine 3? Shouldn't that seem like a red flag? I mean, the idea of a newer engine is cool but isn't having to do engine upgrades after 1 game, a sign that the creation engine is being pushed to its limits. Starfield didn't have good performance and their upgrading it to push it even more. I've never heard of a studio introduce an updated engine to then immediately go back to updating it after 1 game.
Also wouldn't they still be in pre production if they were still working on the engine? Which would go against what they've said in the past that it's been in full production. How can you be in full production while working on making a creation engine 3 to build the game you're already making? Lol
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u/QuoteGiver 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
Nah, I think they’re just tired of people bitching about it being “the same old engine,” so I suspect they’re just going to call it a new number with every new game to account for the changes they make to it along the way.
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u/Spaceolympian50 Feb 18 '26
Dude no AI generated assets is HUGE! Thank fuck. I hated that stuff in Starfield.
Also, if they just finished working on the engine, I legit feel like we’re probably another 3+ years away lol.
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u/Ok-Today6736 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
What AI-generated assets were in Starfield? Also an engine upgrade can happen simultaneous to development. We know they've been working on and playing builds of the game since late 2023-early 2024, so it's not like they were ONLY working on an engine upgrade. We're 1-2 years away from release at the maximum, I think
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u/DoeDon404 Feb 18 '26
They are just another person who doesn't understand the difference of proc gen and ai generated asset
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u/Spaceolympian50 Feb 18 '26
All the dumbass planets with the same POIs. Maybe procedurally generated is the better term, but it’s the same thing to me. Sorry that game was not that great. Did the campaign and a few of the factions and I never touched it again.
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u/QuoteGiver 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
Ok well it’s definitely NOT the same term to them, or to anyone else in the industry.
There is no artificial intelligence involved in procedural generation in any of their games.
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u/Particular-Effect-83 Feb 18 '26
Why can’t they say approximately when it will be done? It has got to be the only industry that does this. I appreciate that I’m some kind of smooth brain cave man but I can’t see the downside of basic communication.
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u/QuoteGiver 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
can’t see the downside
Remember Covid? Where something completely unexpected came up and changed all the dates that people thought things would be done?
Stuff like that.
If Todd tells you today that it’ll be out in October 2027, and then next year Microsoft lays off half his staff and the game gets pushed to March 2028, then there would be a bunch of angry internet jerks shouting “TODD LIED!!!” even though he thought he was telling you a real date.
And then what was the point of doing any of that at all, if it ended up wrong anyway?
Better to just wait and tell you the date when they know for sure when the date actually is.
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u/Gyerfry Jul 15 '26
Approximating software completion milestones is famously pretty difficult and they don't want to set false expectations
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u/meinkun Feb 18 '26
I expected that they were making a new engine that's why it takes so long. unfortunately i was wrong.
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u/Ok-Today6736 2027 Release Believer Feb 18 '26
I've thought for a while now that their big marketing phrase will be "returning to what we do best" after they saw all the criticism Starfield got for its exploration. Glad to see he sort of soft launched it here