Image credit: Bethesda

Following Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's recent redacted tease of a subtitle for the long-awaited Elder Scrolls 6, it's been discovered the game's full name might have been hiding in developer Bethesda's most recent release, Starfield, all along.

Earlier this week, Sharma - whose recent visit to developer Bethesda was met with a giant inflatable rat outside its offices as protests against Xbox's devastating layoffs continue - teased that she'd just had a "live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls 6: ******** this morning." The eight asterisks in her post naturally inspired players to go digging for answers, sharing theories as to what the game's subtitle could be.

Some of the suggestions included Dominion, Covenant, Orsinium, Starfall and even Skyrim 2 - which has eight characters if you count the space. However, the leading theory so far appears to be Sentinel, a major city in The Elder Scrolls' region of Hammerfell. Even before Sharma's tweet, many theorised Hammerfell is where the next game would be set, based mostly on the single image Bethesda shared when The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced in 2018.

But it's now emerged that Bethesda may have been hiding the game's name - which just so happens to be the community's current favourite subtitle candidate - in Starfield for years (via IGN). Or, at least, that's the latest theory.

On Reddit, players have been revisiting screenshots of the Starfield character creator, which includes a 16-digit employee number at the bottom. This is typically the type of incidental detail that lends authenticity to fictional worlds, but in this case, there's compelling evidence it's also been secretly spelling out 'Sentinel' this entire time. When the number is divided into pairs, then each is mapped to a corresponding letter in the alphabet, you get the magic word: Sentinel.

By the way, Sentinel was already teased in Starfield
by u/starfieldnovember in TESVI

This isn't a new discovery, mind: some players picked up on it three years ago, and even posted about it on Reddit. But the discovery has now resurfaced as potential evidence that 'Sentinel' is indeed the Elder Scrolls 6's subtitle. What's more, former Bethesda writer, artist, and designer Michael Kirkbride has chimed in to confirm the Sentinel theory, which is probably about the best we're going to get at this point.

In 2025, Bethesda's Todd Howard revealed The Elder Scrolls 6 was "still a long way off" from release. And last month, in the wake of Xbox's sweeping layoffs, Bethesda employees reportedly claimed the cuts would have a "substantial and cascading effect" on the game's development progress.

Bethesda later released a statement intended to assuage concerned fans, claiming the studio's current primary focus is on delivering the long-awaited sequel, though it did not address the reported employee claims directly. "The next chapter is on the way," the studio said in its message. "We’re where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day."

Eight years after its unveiling, The Elder Scrolls 6 still doesn't have a release target.

Mentioned in this article

See 1 more