Earlier this morning (or late last night depending on our sleep schedule), we probably got your hopes up a bit too high, reporting that perhaps Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was headed for a next-gen release, as the game was listed for availability on Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One. A lot of people caught notice, and took to Twitter to ask Bethesda's mouthpiece Pete Hines, the company's VP of PR, what was up. Hines clarified that the listing was the result of a simple bug, and nothing more.
"just a bug from a CMS update we did. 00/00/14 got entered in blank fields and caused this to appear. Sry for confusion," wrote Hines, who followed up that his team was "working on the issue. Most of my folks back home are just getting to the office."
He also took the moment to clear up a circulating e-mail that was teasing a special announcement from Bethesda, scheduled for the 14th of this month. Like the Fallout 4 Survivor2099 site, Hines called the e-mail "another fan hoax."
The listing has since been altered to remove the PS4 and Xbox One from the list of available platforms.
The story as it originally appeared is below.
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Going Next-Gen? Game Listed for Xbox One and PS4 Release on Bethesda's Website
Bethesda's policy on revealing new information on its most celebrated IP's has always been hush hush, so when something seems amiss, like a game showing up on Bethesda's site as listed for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, it's hard to say if Bethesda just let the cat out of the bag, or it's just an error. Whatever the case, that's the situation we now find ourselves in with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Go see for yourself. Seriously. Go ahead. I'll wait. Still there? Well, at the time of this publishing, both of the next-gen consoles are still listed there, but you can see a screenshot above in the event it's not there now, just to let you know we weren't foolin'. Skyrim already has a version bundling all the DLC together in the form of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Legendary Edition.
A next-gen version of Skyrim has come up before. Shortly before the first wave of DLC hit the game, gaming development overall was in a very akward position. The Wii U's release was just around the corner, but there was not one lick of legitimate information for Sony and Microsoft's future consoles, leaving developers in the dark as to figure out what to do with their games.
Speaking on developing content for new consoles, Bethesda's VP of Communication, Pete Hines, said, "The developers are trying to hit a moving technical target, because the platforms are being built. A new console doesn't just show up a year before launch and is exactly what it will be when it comes out. It moves and iterates along the way...And introducing something like that to games that are in development is always a bit tricky. And that is obviously an element of risk."
Suffice it to say, seeing Skyrim on a shiny new console seemed like a slim chance then, and it seems like a slim chance now. As such, I'm confident in my belief that this is just some kind of a technical error. The one doubt I have is due to Bethesda's teasing that there will be some kind of exciting announcement next week, January 14. But with the company working on a new Wolfenstein and The Elder Scrolls Online (for which a beta is incoming), I doubt the announcement will be anything concerning the Dragonborne.
We'll keep you posted once Bethesda comments on the matter.