Bethesda's main spokesperson and chief developer Todd Howard says that the studio isn't ruling out external development on the Elder Scrolls series after Skyrim comes out.

Upon the release of the release of the game, other studios may have a chance to try their hand at expanding the Elder Scrolls universe assuming they're up to the task of doing so—but the possibility looks slim.

"I don't know, we kind of take it bit by bit," he said to Edge. "I mean New Vegas was unique: as a publisher, we wanted to do something with Obsidian; we knew we were moving on Elder Scrolls; they had a team available."

"They age us the pitch and we were like, 'That would be a really fun game'. But they had experience with the IP, and with Elder Scrolls we don't have that. I wouldn't rule that out, but generally with everything we want to keep it internal."

Skyrim is set for a November 11 release on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.