It was a Monday when Bethesda‘s official Elder Scrolls Twitter account decided to give us a small treat. Just a sweet and soft video with a caption ‘Your misty Monday moment of zen.’ The video was showing a person’s view as he was walking through a foggy and wet forest, where water was falling from the leaves, and the graphics looked very similar to the classic ones. It feels so calm, right? However, the gamers who got to see it had different opinions… The calmness lasted a little while before the comment section transformed into a battle ground of requests, speculations and pure, raw frustration. It was a different vibe altogether.
What the clip was, was the first big question. The very first question that came to many people’s minds was that it must be from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. One user, Johnathan Hull, replied to someone else’s comment saying, ‘It’s oblivion remastered’. Another user just put up a simple question, ‘@ElderScrolls is this an oblivion clip or new?’ The mood was surely 2006, but that did not stop the speculation train from circulating. One user even went so far as to count the stones that were displayed in the video, attaching an image and writing ‘6 stones = TES6 !!?’. It is really hard to believe that gamers are doing detective work on stones.
But what was the main reaction? It was not so much an acknowledgment of the game. It came in the form of a demand that was just a steady stream of requests from the fans wanting The Elder Scrolls VI. It was like a tidal wave. The ‘moment of zen’ was indeed just a catalyst. ‘Where is TES 6 dude?’ was the question raised by Pool. ‘Drop an ES6 trailer little brother,’ was Santa Dom’s message. ‘Yo…where the hell is your game?’ Killswitch made a statement that truly reflects the mood. Even the requests were getting more and more creative. One gamer, Rogue Agent, even claimed that Todd Howard is in a ‘groundhog day’ loop where he keeps thinking Skyrim isn’t live yet, which is the reason they keep re-releasing it and why ES6 is taking so long. ‘That’s why he doesn’t age,’ they added. To be honest? That’s kind of clever. And kind of sad.
Then to the other side of complaint: technical problems. This was mainly about the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Skyrim. Oh my god! There were so many replies coming in on this issue. ‘Fix switch 2 release, it’s horrendous with input lag. Not to mention it should be 60fps. Wtf were ya’ll thinking when you said it was good to go?’ J Christian was one of them and they were not the only one having such issues. The replies of dozens affirmed this. ‘Fix the Switch 2 version,’ ‘Update to 60fps on Switch 2 PLEASE,’ ‘I can’t play it due to that huge input lag.’ It was a crazy chorus of frustration. One user, rrred even threw some console war shade by saying that the Freeze 2 is ‘less powerful than a series s (5-year-old console) while at the same time being 5th the size, DLSS is really the only thing saving the poor thing.’ Ouch!
Some users were just trying to get help for something else. ‘Is there any chance that we could receive some more patches for Skyrim…the goldenhill plantation quest keeps breaking for me on PS5,’ one user asked. Another one wanted to have Oblivion’s ‘back flips at lvl 75 athletics’ back. Such a mixed bag of requests was thrown at this poor, peaceful forest video. Also, there was a user who said the clip ‘puts me to sleep đŸ˜ª’. So at least one person was able to reach their zen state through it. Good for them.
But what about the majority opinion? a community that is, let’s say, eagerly waiting. The ‘sad rain is a hint towards their development time…’ as one user, human, jokingly said in a reply. It is funny because it is the truth. Bethesda uploads a nice, soothing video and the whole fanbase uses it as a loudspeaker to whisper their expectations for the next game and to moan about the current ones. This has become a tradition of sorts. The video itself is probably nothing—a test, or maybe just a beautiful picture from an old game. But the reply is everything. It reveals to us how desperately the players are waiting for even a tiny piece of information about TES6, and how they still are so intently linked to the older titles, bugs and all. They cherish those worlds a lot but they are really tired of the fog wating.
