The Fallout TV show has been a bit of a smash hit. People loved season 1 enough to give it a 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and season 2 has somehow surpassed that mark. Naturally, this leaves a bit of a question. Fallout, as an IP, is only one half of Bethesda’s twin monoliths.
The Elder Scrolls, and Skyrim in particular, are absolutely legendary – with the game, and its modding scene, as a major touchstone in gaming culture at large. So, will there ever be an Elder Scrolls TV show? Would it be just as good as the Fallout one?
While Bethesda themselves has yet to comment on the matter, PressboxPR has released an interview with Bruce Nesmith, who – among other accolades – was the Lead Designer for Skyrim.
When Nesmith was asked about the possibility of an Elder Scrolls TV show, he gave two answers. Neither of which were especially positive.
Why An Elder Scrolls TV Show May Never Exist
In short, the setting is just too generic to make a good show out of it. And financially-speaking, the franchise is making too much money, rendering any marketing gains from a TV show a bit redundant.
In long, well, those words are best said from Nesmith himself:
“There’s something very special and different and unique about Fallout that lends itself to becoming a TV or movie experience,” Nesmith explained, “whereas The Elder Scrolls is trying to be a standard kind of fantasy.”
Nesmith compared The Elder Scrolls to Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, arguing that Bethesda’s IP just doesn’t have enough interesting twists or signature touches to make it stand out from the crowd.
Such a statement immediately makes one think back to The Elder Scrolls’ most interesting aspects. If a show was based on Skyrim, it’d have a interesting Nordic flavor, coupled with unique magic from the Thu’um. And then there’s the Dwemer lore, and Sheogorath’s usual shenanigans…
But these aren’t quite what Nesmith is talking about. Most of those things thrive below the surface level of the IP, and audiences will need to be sold on things like “the basic premise” in order to care about those deeper aspects. Nesmith’s third comparison is to Fallout, where this distinction is made much clearer.
“There is nothing like the Fallout universe anywhere else in gaming,” Nesmith says. “It’s very unique. That makes it easy to make a TV show and draw eyeballs as opposed to going into a fantasy world where I’ve got elves and people throwing spells around.”
“There’s a dragon? I’ve seen dragons 20 times before. What are you giving to viewers that’s new?”
On the subject of Bethesda’s bottom line, Nesmith felt that The Elder Scrolls was on extremely solid footing. So solid, in fact, that it simply doesn’t need a TV show to support things. Support that, apparently, is the main benefit of having a show in the first place.
“What you’re going to make by licensing the IP to this TV show is just peanuts,” Nesmith said, explaining how the Fallout show doesn’t “make Bethesda money directly.”
“What it does get you is attention. What it gets you is notoriety. It’s marketing. Do they really need marketing for Elder Scrolls 6?”
Nesmith continued: “Different media have different needs and I don’t know that The Elder Scrolls would fit that media well. Maybe a movie but I would struggle to see a TV show. That would just be for promotional purposes but they’re not going to make a ton of money off it”
