The Elder Scrolls 6 Is Called Sentinel, and Its Teaser Hides a Story Clue

Bethesda has given The Elder Scrolls 6 a name: Sentinel. Todd Howard closed out Bethesda's 40th anniversary celebration by revealing it, eight years after the little teaser in 2018 that started us calling this game Elder Scrolls 6. This is real news with no question mark around it. Somehow, though, the most interesting thing in the reveal is the tiny line underneath the quote about an Elder Scroll.

That line names a queen of Hammerfell, gives us a year, and talks about a victory being undone. I want to dig into where we're going, but also who we might be playing as, because I think Bethesda just gave us a reason to look past the obvious answer.

The Elder Scrolls 6 Sentinel reveal: sand, a scroll and a Moth Priest

What we got was a name reveal. There's sand, there's a scroll, and there's a line attributed to a Moth Priest. No gameplay came with it, and no release date either. Still, the details Bethesda chose to put in that teaser are worth picking apart, and the name is the place to start.

Sentinel is a city in Hammerfell, the homeland of the Redguards. It's a port on the southern side of the Iliac Bay, near the desert. If you played Daggerfall or visited Sentinel in Elder Scrolls Online, you've seen versions of this place before.

Why a Hammerfell port city could make Sentinel feel different from Skyrim

What I want to see is Bethesda build a modern single player Elder Scrolls around the part we can get lost in. Think about how different the first hour could feel from Skyrim. You come into a port city. Ships are unloading, travelers are coming in from across the bay, and somebody in a market is trying to sell you a map to a ruin out in the desert.

You can follow the road, you can pay for passage somewhere else, or you can decide that guy is absolutely lying to you and buy the map anyway. The last one is probably me. And if you hear Hammerfell and picture nothing but sand, the port is exactly why this name gets me excited.

We've got coast, trade routes, and a desert with its own history. We've got a city where people from different parts have a reason to cross paths. The best thing a capital can do in one of these games is make the world feel bigger the longer you spend in it. You hear about a place three quests before you ever see it, and by the time you get there, you have an opinion and expectations of it.

Does the Sentinel name tell us how big the Elder Scrolls 6 map is?

No. I'd put my money on Sentinel being a major location. Beyond that, we're guessing. It could anchor a much wider trip through Hammerfell. It could give Bethesda a reason to send us across the bay. I know somebody already has a map open, drawing a line straight to High Rock. I get it.

But I'd be happy if Bethesda spent its time making Hammerfell feel like a place with its own identity. Give me a city I want to go back to after a quest, before I even know the people there.

The teaser quote is dated five years after Skyrim

The date in the teaser is the part I keep coming back to. The quote is attributed to a Moth Priest serving a queen of Hammerfell, and it's dated five years after the events of Skyrim, which takes place in 4E 201.

That dates the quote itself. The game could start in that year, or later, or use the quote as a historical clue we come across. But Bethesda could have given us a prophecy from a thousand years ago. Instead, they put this one close to home, close enough to Skyrim that the political fallout of that era could still matter.

Whose victory does the Moth Priest see undone?

The teaser describes what the priest sees as a lost future and a victory being undone. Whose victory? If you know Hammerfell's recent history, one possibility jumps out. After the Great War, the Empire's peace deal with the Dominion included giving up territory in southern Hammerfell. Hammerfell rejected it, kept fighting, and eventually negotiated its own peace deal.

So you already have a province that fought hard to decide its own future. Now imagine telling somebody who lived through that war that a victory they thought was settled was taken away. You could build a whole storyline around how different people respond to that same warning. That's my theory, to be clear. We have no idea which victory the teaser means.

It could be a battle we've never heard of. It could be something that hasn't even happened yet, and that second possibility is the one I like more the longer I think about it. What if the priest has seen a future that only happens if certain people make certain choices? Then you have a reason for the queen to care about who gets hold of that scroll, and a reason for other people to want it just as badly.

Will we play as a Redguard in The Elder Scrolls 6?

The first thing I saw people jump to was that we're playing as a Redguard. Well, you might be. That's probably the character I'm going to make. But my best guess is Bethesda lets us create our own character, with our own role in the story that ties us to Sentinel.

Skyrim let you choose your race, and you could still become the Dragonborn. A game built around a Redguard homeland could put Redguard history and characters at the center while still letting you decide who walks through the gate.

Could we play the Moth Priest himself? I'd bet against it. The way he's introduced makes him sound like somebody whose words set the story into motion. I would believe we're the person sent to find him, or the one who discovers why somebody wants his reading buried.

Sentinel's second meaning, and a wish for earned sword singing

There's a second meaning in the title, too. A sentinel is somebody who stands watch, stands guard, oversees. Maybe the city gives the game its name and the story asks you what you're willing to protect. I like that better as a role you can grow into than a job title somebody hands you in the opening cutscene.

I know what the lore fans are waiting for here: sword singing. Redguard legends tell of warriors who can manifest a blade from their own spirit. If Bethesda decides to make that something we can learn, the quest needs to make me earn it. Send me out looking for a teacher everybody thinks is dead. Make us understand why that tradition almost disappeared.

By the time I finally summon that magical sword, and I think of the Master Sword in The Legend of Zelda here, I want to remember who taught me and what it cost to get there. I think that would stick with me a lot longer than unlocking a shiny new attack in a skill tree. That's a wish list item for now, but I'm getting excited.

What I want to see Bethesda do with the Elder Scroll next

The reveal gives us plenty of reason to talk about Redguard lore, but we need gameplay to know which parts of it Bethesda is going to build into the RPG. The biggest thing I'm looking for in the next reveal is what Bethesda lets us do with the scroll itself.

If the priest only sees a glimpse, how sure is he about what it means? Could two people read the same warning and come away wanting completely different things? It's possible. Maybe we get a quest where we have to decide who gets to act on the information before we know which interpretation is right. Then let me walk back into Sentinel 10 hours later and see what my choice did to the place. That is a version of this game I want to play.

Don't sound the alarms, but Bethesda is sending out real teasers, which means the only way to go is up from here in marketing. Maybe we start getting more pieces of this puzzle. We still have a long way to go, I know, but we're on the road, which is something new.