In June 2016, Todd Howard, director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, confirmed the developer's intent to make a new entry in The Elder Scrolls series, describing the game's status as "kind of the elephant in the room", while asserting that "It's good to tell our fans in these moments, yes, of course we are [making The Elder Scrolls VI]."

[4] In March 2019, through a promotional video commemorating the 25th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda announced that YouTuber Shirley Curry, otherwise known online as the "Skyrim Grandma", would be featured in The Elder Scrolls VI as a non-player character (NPC), depicted through motion capture photography.

[11] In August 2023, Todd Howard described his intent behind The Elder Scrolls VI as wanting to make "the ultimate fantasy-world simulator", and that there were many directions to take with that goal due to the time passed since Skyrim's release.

[16] The game was formally announced during Bethesda's conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 event on June 10 that year, where Todd Howard presented a short teaser trailer, and revealed that the project had started pre-production, with its launch scheduled to follow the releases of the studio's imminent games in development, Fallout 76 (2018) and Starfield (2023).

[20][21] Prior to Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the game was initially targeting a launch date during the 2024 fiscal year period.

[22] In June 2023, Phil Spencer provided an update on the game's release timing at a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hearing concerning Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, stating that the title was still estimated to be "five plus years away" from launch, and that any target platforms were undecided at that particular stage.