Xbox Is Embracing Exclusives Again: What Does That Mean For The Elder Scrolls 6?

After months of debate and speculation over Xbox’s strategy, Matt Booty and Asha Sharma laid it out plainly: exclusives are back.

Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are shifting away from the open borders approach to new first-party releases taken by previous leaders Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond, as the team is now evaluating each game on a case-by-case basis. Fable and Halo: Campaign Evolved will remain cross-platform (with the latter locked in for a PS5 launch next month), but without a clear directive on what exactly determines if a game will be exclusive or not, all future titles are once again up in the air — including the long-overdue Elder Scrolls 6.

There’s been a lot of back-and-forth on where TES 6 will land ever since Microsoft acquired Bethesda in 2021. A year prior, when the deal was initially announced, Todd Howard said that it’s “hard to imagine” the tentpole sequel being exclusive. However, in documents released by the CMA pertaining to the Activision Blizzard King acquisition scrutiny, Microsoft argued that The Elder Scrolls 6 is a “mid-sized game,” landing in the sweet spot for exclusivity. Phil Spencer even alluded to as much.

Xbox Promises Exclusives Every Year, And More When The Business Is “Healthy”

Sharma and Booty stated in a recent “Xbox Reset” letter to staff that “Players can continue to expect signature exclusives from us every year,” pointing to Gears of War: E-Day in 2026 and Clockwork Revolution in 2027, leaving future years wide open. Todd Howard admitted that TES 6 is “still a long way off,” so it could very well fill one of those vacant exclusive slots in 2028 or onwards.

The new leadership has made it abundantly clear that exclusives are vital to the console’s ecosystem, arguing that they add value to the hardware. Sharma in particular noted in an interview with Fortune that it’s “hard to find examples of platforms out there that don’t have exclusive services and content,” and that Xbox plans to introduce more exclusives “as the business is healthy.”

So, it’s possible that TES 6’s exclusivity will depend entirely on where Xbox’s finances stand by the time of its launch — the lingering question that has hung over Bethesda’s head since the E3 reveal in 2018. We know from a leaked internal roadmap that it was intended to launch in fiscal year 2024. Evidently, that didn’t happen. But using the Oblivion remaster, which was intended to arrive in fiscal year 2022, we can gauge roughly how long it has been delayed by. With Oblivion ultimately landing in 2025, following that exact timeline means we can expect TES 6 by 2027 at the earliest. Or, more realistically, 2028.

Sharma believes that Xbox can become the number one gaming company by the end of the decade, which would certainly qualify as “healthy” business, but whether that confidence is warranted is another question entirely. Xbox has dug itself a two-generation deep hole, and while reducing the price of Game Pass and winding down Copilot for Gaming are steps in the right direction, years of mismanagement and mass layoffs — which look set to continue — have left the team in an unenviable position. There’s a lot riding on the success of the hybrid Project Helix console, but with a reputation as marred as Xbox’s, shiny new hardware might not be enough.

Regardless, Sharma is intent that exclusives will play a crucial role in putting Xbox back on the map, and prestigious, high-profile releases are key to that. You’re hardly going to sell a console on the back of niche, double-A titles. Tentpole releases like God of War Laufey and Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet are what move hardware, and The Elder Scrolls 6 could be Xbox’s way of filling that void, but with years of anticipation behind it, abandoning a huge chunk of the audience to sell a console would undoubtedly be controversial.

We can only speculate, but one thing is clear: Xbox’s sudden change in approach to exclusivity has dashed any certainty that The Elder Scrolls 6 would be cross-platform. Until Bethesda says otherwise, it’s up in the air right now. Xbox promises that it will “really reveal” the game at some point, but when exactly remains a mystery. Todd Howard has expressed regret at unveiling TES 6 as early as he did, so in all likelihood, we won’t see much of it until it’s right on the doorstep of launch.