The Elder Scrolls V: Now with 30% more criminal scum
 

So, if you're the sort of person who considers interview slip-ups, careless product descriptions and trademark filings reputable sources of information, then it should seem obvious that a new Elder Scrolls game is in development. Also, given that it's a successful series that sees a new main instalment roughly every four years, supposing that a new one is in development isn't really that outlandish.

Crawling the United States Patent & Trademark Office shows that Zenimax - Bethesda's parent company - currently has three unused trademarks, all for videogame-related applications: Skyrim, Deathmark and Dishonored. Skyrim is the only one with direct relation to the game series, and implies that the game will take place in the northern province; Deathmark could apply to absolutely anything; and Dishonored expired some years ago (that said, though, the Oblivion trademark was initially filed in 1995, went stale, and was re-applied-for shortly before the game was announced).

Then there are the times employees accidentally let things slip: "New Elder Scrolls in 2010," said some dude last October, and "Todd Howard and his team have their hands full with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout," said another guy this June. On the flipside, Todd Howard himself said nothing was going on at Quakecon this year, which was rather silly - I find it rather difficult to believe Bethesda as a whole is sitting on their thumbs doing fuck-all; the new Fallout game has been outsourced to Obsidian, they have no involvement with Brink aside from publishing it, and they're not producing any more content for Fallout 3.

Another interesting point is Bethesda's ownership of domains like elderscrollsmmo.com and theelderscrollsonline.net, implying that the next game in the series could be an MMORPG (please god no).

Lastly, the blurb for a new novel set in the universe mentions something interesting:

The above originally appeared on Waterstones' page for the book, but has been trimmed from the description since yesterday.

t.l.;dr.: TES5 is probably in development and might be coming as soon as next year. Here's hoping they'll fix everything I didn't like about Oblivion - level scaling, shit animations, an awful dialogue system and vast swathes of pointless empty countryside. Given how popular it was, though, I can see them sticking to the same tricks for the next instalment. Bah.

Well I wouldn't base Oblivion coming out 4 years after Morrowind as saying that the series comes out every four years,
Lore:Skyrim - UESPWiki

http://www.uesp.net/w/images/images....p_Oblivion.jpg

I certainly hope that if it does take place on one continent, they can keep the game environments varied enough. Skyrim will be mostly all snow just like Cyrodil is composed of large forested regions. I don't know all about Tamriel, but there might be a better land.

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/t...ggerfall-1.jpg

You can likely cross off Hammerfell, High Rock, Cyrodiil, Morrowind-Vvardenfall (and bloodmoon area isle northwest of Vvardenfall) off the list of lands the next game will encompass.

I would like to play in both Valenwood and Elsweyr for the next game. They are both right next to each other and about the size of Cyrodiil.
- Elsweyr, the deserts and jungles to the south of Cyrodiil, home to the Khajiit.
- Valenwood, a densely forested area to the south of Cyrodiil, home to the Bosmer.

Black Marsh would be cool too (Argonian homeland), but if you read the ElderScrolls wiki, the primary mode of transportation is boat, so that probably wouldn't be that much fun, but I am sure the developers could work something out. Frankly, I just want to cross zonal boundaries.

And I do not think Bethesda is going to end up leaving the crap things about Oblivion in there. They upgraded significantly from Morrowind to Oblivion and somewhat to Fallout. And who is telling what type of technology will be available for the next consoles and how their engine will be in 2011 or later.

I want to go back to Morrowind eventually, which has the most mods ever for a game (probably), as I barely even got far into it. Always was just near the first town even though I put many hours into it. The reason I don't want to play Oblivion with mods is I did literally everything possible in that game on Xbox, so I don't want to replay such a game that i totally completed even if there are decent mods.

There does not need to be an MMO ElderScrolls. All there needs to be is 4-8 player coop and maybe a battle arena.