Coming from Bethesda who specialized in sports games at the time, 1994's Elder Scrolls: Arena was planned as a gladiatorial battle game that would see players travelling between venues and fighting teams of warriors. During development side quests were added and towns outside of those on the world tour were built. Around this time the team built dungeons, the gladiatorial aspect of the game was quietly dropped, and the game transitioned into a full role-playing game.

A cult hit, it wasn't long until sequels followed. After the impossibly huge Daggerfall (15,000 towns and a population of 750,000 characters), we got a sequel every four years or so, until 2011's Skyrim became one of the highest-selling RPGs in history.

Of course, there was going to be another sequel after that.

But with the introduction of Elder Scrolls Online muddying the rumour mills and nine straight years passing between games so far, we've no idea what to believe. So let's regroup for a fresh look at what we know so far, alongside some of the more interesting rumours surrounding The Elder Scrolls VI.