At the 3:45 mark in the video above, after Todd Howard has outlined the production process involved on their games (smaller teams work on their games during pre-production before most of the development team comes on board for proper full production), Keighley asks if Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 are “in production”.
“I would say Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production, and
Starfield is in production.
It’s a game we’ve been making for a while”, Howard said. When asked if that meant that Starfield existed in a playable form somewhere, he responded “oh, yes. Absolutely. That’s a good way to say it.
Starfield is playable, Elder Scrolls 6, not in that way yet.”
This means that Elder Scrolls 6 is a long way away – Howard also said that the technology they want for the games they’re making is “getting closer”, rather than being available,
which suggests that Elder Scrolls 6 is likely to be a PS5 / Xbox 4 game.
The announcement videos, he said, are meant to establish “tone”, but also that they featured “some things to pick apart” for avid fans.