Starfield made its grand entrance at E3 2021, launching the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase. The trailer doesn’t reveal much about gameplay or story, focusing more on cinematic aspects of Starfield’s universe. Watching the trailer very carefully, fans noticed a possible Easter egg about The Elder Scrolls 6 that could give a crucial clue to the setting of the highly anticipated game.
Initially announced at E3 2018, Bethesda has revealed nothing about The Elder Scrolls 6 other than the fact that it’s in development – and not likely getting out of it any time soon. Fans hoping for more information about the game to be announced at E3 2021 were sorely disappointed, getting no information about the game other than a passing comment from Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, acknowledging the game’s ongoing development.
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In the Starfield trailer, at the 1:17 mark, the astronaut pulls her control panel down. The side of the panel has a mark, perhaps an etching or tape residue, that bears a striking resemblance (or, depending on who you talk to, barely any resemblance) to a map of northwestern Tamriel. Specifically, the mark resembles a map of Hammerfell, High Rock, and possibly the northern tip of the Summerset Isles. All three of these locations, Hammerfell in particular, have been theorized as the setting of The Elder Scrolls 6 before. But is it likely? And is this actually an Easter egg at all?
The Elder Scrolls 6: Hammerfell or High Rock?
The argument for Hammerfell as a possible location for the next installment of The Elder Scrolls is relatively strong. There has yet to be a game from The Elder Scrolls exclusively set in Hammerfell, and its storied history of conflict with the Altmer would make a fertile ground for an engaging narrative. Its size is also equal to, if not larger than, Skyrim, allowing Bethesda to show off its famed open-world mechanics, though in-game worlds throughout the series have varied in actual size compared to their theorized on-map dimensions. A further argument in favor of this region is a Bethesda tweet from New Year’s Eve 2020. While no mention was made of The Elder Scrolls 6 or its location, fans were quick to theorize that the phrase “map the future“, in conjunction with a candle sitting just below the southern border of Skyrim in the image, meant Hammerfell would be the location of the next Elder Scrolls game.
The biggest question remaining is whether the Starfield trailer Easter egg was intentional or a fluke of chance. The odds of the mark looking exactly like a portion of Tamriel’s map purely by accident are low, but then again, the mark doesn’t look exactly like that. If it was indeed done on purpose, Bethesda did a masterful job, knowing its fans would scour the Starfield trailer for further clues about the space RPG but dropping a hint about The Elder Scrolls 6 instead. It’s also possible, as Hammerfell and High Rock bear a passing resemblance to western Europe and the British Isles, that the mark in Starfield is an homage to real-world geography. More likely, it’s an artist’s rendition of the residue left over from a piece of tape and doesn’t actually mean anything at all. But one thing is for sure: Fans will keep trying to figure out where The Elder Scrolls 6 takes place until Bethesda finally announces it.
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