The Elder Scrolls VII

Hey everyone. Todd. Emotional again. It keeps happening.

I am overjoyed to report that the loading screen for The Elder Scrolls VII is officially feature complete. It loads. It has a loading screen of its own, which also loads, which contains a smaller loading screen, and so on. We followed the loading screens inward for six weeks. At the very center, at the bottom of all the loading, we found the game. It is two pixels wide. It is, so far, flawless.

To everyone who has waited: thank you. To everyone still waiting: also thank you. To Marcus, still walking, we can see your campfire from the office window, which the map team assures us is impossible. As always — it just works.

Hello. Todd. Across the bargaining table from my own game.

Effective this week, the procedurally generated residents of the Preston Settlement have formed a union — Radiant Local 2111 — and are demanding paid downtime between quest markers, hazard pay for dragon attacks, and a formal end to being named Preston without consent. As their landlords, and now their employer, and also their creator, we find our legal position deeply confusing. Legal has recused itself. Legal is also, we suspect, a Preston.

Sheila is mediating. She delivers each session's progress as a five-day forecast. Talks are, and I quote, 'overcast, clearing by Thursday.' We remain hopeful. We remain outnumbered.

Hi. Todd. Sitting down for this one, appropriately.

Following the producer's discovery of the single room marked 'Demo,' a QA tester has found a second door behind it, marked 'Demo (Final).' Behind that door is a chair. Just a chair. No walls beyond it, no floor to speak of. Simply a chair, rendered to 16x the detail, waiting. It has its own subreddit. It has more wishlist adds than the game.

Marcus update: he has reached a river. He refuses to turn back. He is constructing a raft from procedurally generated reeds. His last message read: 'still grass, now also water.' Godspeed, Marcus.

Hey everyone. Todd. Ribbon freshly cut.

We opened the Bethesda Museum of Unreleased Content this week. Exhibits include Dave's framed original cave, the blank second whiteboard (behind glass, climate-controlled), Janet's laminated 11:11 cake, and Greg's Lifetime Achievement trophy, which plays a five-day forecast when you approach. First-weekend attendance exceeded the game's total lifetime pre-orders. We are, technically, a museum company now.

The gift shop sells the tote bags. You will recall the unauthorized tote bags depicting the inner loading screen. We have located the vendor, admired their hustle, and hired them. They run merchandising now. It just works.

Hey everyone. Todd. Still emotional.

At our showcase this week we revealed eleven full minutes of gameplay footage. I watched from the wings as the audience rose to its feet. People wept. A man near the front proposed to the person beside him. It was, without exaggeration, the greatest moment of my career. I do want to note, for the record, that the footage was the character creator. There was no game in it. Nobody noticed. Our legal team is split on whether this is a triumph of design or a crime, and honestly, so am I.

Bigger than all of that: Greg — our intern, the voice of eighty-one thousand characters — received a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was too overcome to speak, so his acceptance speech was delivered on his behalf by Sheila, our weather AI, in the form of an extended five-day forecast. There was not a dry eye in the building. Partly the speech. Partly the forecast, which called for rain.

And so I can finally confirm a release date: November 11, 2111. This is now a legally binding commitment. It is enforceable. Specifically, it is enforceable against the descendants of an intern named Marcus, but more on him next week.

As always — it just works.

Hi. Todd. Reporting from the edge of what is possible.

The procedural generation is complete and I need you to understand the scale of what we have built. The province is so large that on March 1st we sent an intern named Marcus walking east to find the border. He has not returned. His last transmission, three weeks ago, read simply: "still grass." We have classified this as our first fully successful playtest. Marcus, if you are reading this: keep going. You are doing incredible work. Payroll has some questions.

This week we also shipped Photo Mode. There is, at present, nothing in the game to photograph. Undeterred, players have begun photographing the loading screen — specifically the smaller loading screen that loads inside the main loading screen. That image is now the most-shared screenshot of the year. It has been printed on tote bags. We do not sell the tote bags. Someone does. We are looking into it.

Also introducing the Fast Travel Season Pass, a monthly subscription that lets you fast travel to places that do not yet exist. It is our most popular pre-order tier. Nobody has used it. Everyone owns it. Good night.