On Monday morning Bethesda updated its blog to announce that continued content development of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has concluded.
The team first began working on the popular RPG in 2006, and over the last year and a half since the game went retail, they've pumped out new post-release content like Dawnguard, Hearthfire, Dragonborn, the Creation Kit, Kinect support and more. Now new Skyrim releases will be limited to minor updates.
"For the last year and a half we’ve been working on new content for Skyrim," the company said. "Parts of our team have also been in pre-production on our next major project, and that game is at the point where it requires the studio’s full attention to make it our biggest and best work yet."
The blog update follows a spotting of The Elder Scrolls: Arena in Australia's Classification Database. The first in the Elder Scrolls series, Arena originally made its debut as a DOS-based title back in 1994, but just reappeared in the database with an "M" rating on April 9. There's speculation that it's either a reboot, or just an HD remake so that it can be properly played in a Windows environment.
That said, whether a new Elder Scrolls game is on the team's agenda or not is unknown at this point. Some may be ready for a change of scenery after serving on the same project for seven years. For others, it may be hard to let go.
"We’ve invested so much of ourselves into Skyrim and will never truly say goodbye to it," the company added. "Skyrim has been a labor of love for us since we started designing it in 2006. We never imagined it would become the phenomenon it has. And that is because of you, the fans. It was all of you who made it a success. We can’t thank you enough for embracing the game, spreading the word, and making it your own."
Recently Bethesda's Pete Hines hinted to what the team may be working on now, saying that in 2012 Bethesda will be making "considerably more noise" than last year.
"I think we're continuing to do the stuff that we get excited about, and people will get really excited about when they hear what we're up to, which is continuing to push the boundaries, reinvent - find really smart, passionate teams who know what they're doing and have an idea that they really want to do and do well. So who that is, and what they're doing, is to TBD," he said.
Tease.
