As fans continue to suggest potential subtitles for The Elder Scrolls 6 based on the number of asterisks in Xbox boss Asha Sharma’s tweet, a theory that Bethesda hid the actual name in Starfield years ago has emerged — and it’s pretty compelling.
As we reported yesterday, The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel has emerged as the frontrunner for the title of the game. But it turns out that Bethesda might have teased Sentinel in the Starfield character creation screen.
As various members of the community have pointed out, the character ID number in the Starfield character creation screen spells out Sentinel perfectly if you divide the number into pairs and use the numbers as the letters of the alphabet.
“This title was at our noses for more than three years and we somehow missed it,” said one fan.
Indeed, there are posts pointing to this Sentinel Easter egg three years ago, but it never really went anywhere. This alone makes Sentinel feel like a done deal (the chances of this ID number spelling out Sentinel are… unlikely in the extreme). But we also have a former Bethesda developer, Michael Kirkbride, replying “yep” to a reddit post suggesting Sentinel as the name.
Sentinel, by the way, is a major coastal capital city of the Redguards located in the northwestern hills of Hammerfell, which some believe is the region in which The Elder Scrolls 6 is set.
So, we’re looking at The Elder Scrolls 6: Sentinel as the name of the next The Elder Scrolls game, and the speculation has begun. Some are even wondering if Sentinel means we could have a dual province game on our hands, one that includes Hammerfell and High Rock.
Or, this could all mean nothing at all. The eight asterisks may not relate to the number of characters in the actual name, and the Starfield employee ID number could just be a coincidence. But I’m pretty convinced at this stage that The Elder Scrolls 6 is indeed called Sentinel. Well, it’s that or it’s Skyrim 2.
The problem is, it may be years before we find out the truth, with The Elder Scrolls 6 reportedly at least two years away from launch despite being announced a sobering eight years ago. So, there’s plenty of time for the theory crafters to lose even more of their minds trying to work this one out.
Meanwhile, Bethesda staff inflated a giant rat outside the company’s offices during Sharma’s visit to play The Elder Scrolls 6, in protest at the mass layoffs Xbox suffered last month. Current and former Bethesda staff told IGN that Microsoft’s devastating layoffs would have a “substantial and cascading effect” on the development of The Elder Scrolls 6, something Bethesda has denied.
Job losses across Bethesda Game Studios locations included “key, high-performing people in the trenches” building the company’s long-awaited Skyrim successor, impacting morale and raising the risk of future development crunch and delays, we were told.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
