Skyrim will be turning nine years old this November. With that anniversary approaching, it’s only natural that fans are wondering how much longer Bethesda will keep us waiting for Elder Scrolls 6. Unfortunately, it sounds like we still have a while to wait. When asked about it on Twitter, Bethesda’s VP of marketing said, “It’s after Starfield, which you pretty much know nothing about. So, if you’re coming at me for details now and not years from now, I’m failing to properly manage your expectations.”

The news is more than a little disappointing, especially for anyone who thought that the 2018 announcement trailer suggested both games were just over the horizon. There’s been some speculation that we might see Starfield released some time in 2021, but speculation is all that is. How long will it be before our next trip to Tamriel? Let’s put on our medieval detective hats and see if we can figure that out.

An odd quirk of Bethesda it that despite the size of its brand, the company is surprisingly small on the development size. Only about 100 people worked on Skyrim and Fallout 4. Compare that to companies like Ubisoft, where teams of 600 or more are considered standard, and Bethesda’s sluggish pace suddenly makes a lot of sense.

To be clear, I’m not saying Bethesda should be more like Ubisoft or that larger teams are inherently better. There are reasonable arguments for why the opposite might be true. Large groups are harder to coordinate and less likely to share the same creative vision.

However, 100 people are still not all that many when you consider how vast a typical Fallout or Elder Scrolls game is. Then there is the fact that the same 100-person studio is responsible for both franchises. This means that they can only be working on one or the other, not both.

But how long does it usually take to get a Bethesda RPG off the ground, anyway? That’s a good question.

The Elders Scrolls III: Morrowind released in 2002 after four years of development. Work on its sequel, Oblivion, began soon after, and the game was ready to ship by 2006. It was followed by Fallout 3 in 2008, Skyrim in 2011, and Fallout 4 in 2015.

So, except for Fallout 3, which began production while Oblivion was still in development, we’re looking at about four years between new releases. If that pattern held, we should have seen Starfield released in 2019 and a new Elder Scrolls by 2023.

That would have been the ideal scenario, but even then, we’re talking about twelve years between Elder Scrolls games. As it stands, we probably won’t see a finished Starfield until 2021 or 2022. That means we might not see Elder Scrolls 6 until 2026 or later. That’s fifteen years between installments!

I was seventeen when Skyrim came out, and at this rate, I’ll be in my thirties before the sequel drops. Is this even sustainable?

This is particularly annoying when you remember how many story threads Skyrim left hanging. Sure, you saved the kingdom from dragons, vampires, and the scourge of civil war, but what about those cartoonishly racist elves trying to conquer the world? Aren’t the Empire and the Dominion still on the brink of war? And isn’t the Emperor himself hugely unpopular and possibly dead by the end of the game? These were all very clearly meant to set up future conflicts in the Elder Scrolls series, but you can’t tell an ongoing story if it only updates every decade and a half.

Does this mean that Bethesda should ditch their other projects and only make Elder Scrolls games until the end of time? No. Does it mean they shouldn’t make Starfield? Of course not. I’m genuinely glad they’re experimenting with a new franchise.

But is anyone going to care when The Elder Scrolls 7 comes out in 2040? Is there even going to be a seventh game if the wait is that long?

What Bethesda needs to do is take the team they have, split them in half, and build two new teams around them. This would allow Bethesda to work on multiple projects without having to create a second studio from the ground up. I’m not going to say it would be a smooth transition, but fifteen years between games just isn’t reasonable.