Skyrim artist urges Bethesda not to turn The Elder Scrolls 6 into Assassin's Creed

Nate Purkeypile, former lead artist at Bethesda who worked on Skyrim and Fallout 76, expressed hope that The Elder Scrolls 6 won't follow the path of Assassin's Creed. Ubisoft's franchise, roughly 10 years younger than The Elder Scrolls but boasting nearly three times as many mainline entries, demonstrates the primary danger facing any long-running series – sliding into monotony.

Purkeypile told Esports Insider regarding Bleak Falls Barrow:

Ubisoft games, despite being fun, are very repetitive and by the numbers. They don't have the same sort of expression and weird things you find off to the side.

He also noted that the glowing mushroom cave "wasn't planned at all" in the original schedule when Purkeypile began working on it with other developers, but Bethesda made the right call by leaving room for experimentation.

Giving people the freedom to do what they want is what I think makes those games successful because then it's not this checklist.

However, Purkeypile acknowledged that Bethesda developers now find it "much harder" to operate with such freedom, considering the publisher has grown into a substantially larger company compared to 2011.

I would hope that Elder Scrolls VI has some new ideas, like systems you’ve never seen before. Who knows, maybe magic works in some completely different way, or there’s some new perk tree.

The developer also shared a long-standing thought:

I've always wondered what's outside of the continent of Tamriel. It's like one big landmass, basically. Isn't there a whole planet to explore? What else is out there? That's what I've always wondered.

Will the time come to look beyond the continent?