'I Didn't Want to Work that Way' Former Elder Scrolls Lead…

Former Bethesda Loremaster Kurt Kuhlmann says broken promises and dissatisfaction with how the studio worked drove him to leave instead of working on The Elder Scrolls 6. All eyes have been on Bethesda lately as the Fallout series jumps back into mainstream popularity and anticipation over the sequel to Skyrim grows. While there's still a lot fans don't know about The Elder Scrolls 6, they do know it won't have one of TES' former leads, and now it's clear why.

There hasn't been a new mainline Elder Scrolls game in over a decade, but there have been a few promising signs recently. Bethesda boss Todd Howard has said The Elder Scrolls 6 is "progressing really well" and that most of the studio's developers are now working on it. One notable member of Bethesda royalty who is not working on it is Kuhlmann, who left the company in 2023 after serving as a writer and lead designer on games like Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 3, to name a few. Now, more than two years later, he's shed some light onto that decision.

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By Sarah Fields

Former Elder Scrolls Loremaster Left Bethesda After 20 Years Because of "Slow, Rolling" Changes

Speaking to PC Gamer, Kuhlmann said he became dissatisfied with how Bethesda changed as the company grew. As the company expanded from a small team to a larger, more corporate beast, project leads had to become more managerial and less directly involved in development. Kuhlmann says,"I didn't want to work that way, because I like making games and being hands-on," and says the increasingly complicated layers of management lead to communication issues and poor decision-making. This echoes the sentiment of another ex-Bethesda dev, Nate Purkeypile, who said Starfield fell flat because developers had limited freedom as teams grew and became more bureaucratic.

Outside of leaving him with less engaging work, Kuhlmann claims these "slow, rolling" changes affected the quality of Bethesda games. The ex-Loremaster praises Todd Howard's prowess as a designer but laments how he got pulled away from development as the company grew, and Kuhlmann says projects suffered without his input and guidance. These worries over how studio size affects game quality aren't unique to Bethesda. Just recently, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Creative Director said the studio has no plans to expand because it believes having leadership be hands-on helps produce a better, more creative game.

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Growing pains were not the only thing that caused The Elder Scrolls to lose its longtime Loremaster. Kuhlmann says Howard had initially promised him the lead design role on TES 6 and that work would begin on it after Fallout 4. However, Bethesda went on to focus on Fallout 76 and Starfield instead of starting work on TES 6 in earnest, and when the time did finally come, upper leadership told him he would not be the lead after all. This revelation, on top of growing disenchantment with Bethesda's operations, ultimately pushed Kuhlmann away from the company. While TES 6 may benefit from other veterans joining Bethesda, it's unclear how Kuhlmann's departure will affect the series going forward.

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Despite these broken promises and frustrations, the former Loremaster holds no hard feelings. Kuhlmann says the larger, more corporate way of running things isn't necessarily wrong, but isn't what he wants to do. He also states it may be best for both sides that he's not in charge of The Elder Scrolls 6's narrative, as he'd want to make it the franchise's version of The Empire Strikes Back but admits a cliffhanger ending wouldn't fit Bethesda's slow release pace. To his point, TES 6 was first revealed seven years ago, and it's been 14 years since Skyrim came out, so a similar gap between TES 6 and TES 7 would be frustrating with an Empire-esque ending. Kuhlmann, like the rest of The Elder Scrolls' fans, will have to wait and see how the story does play out.