Xbox Might Spend A Decade Making A Sequel For One Of Its Franchises

thegamer.com:

We've all seen those memes of old people playing The Elder Scrolls 6, usually captioned something like 'TES fans when Bethesda finally releases a new game'. Maybe it's not so far from the truth. A new document shown in the Microsoft-Activision gamer lawsuit revealed that Xbox is working on a title for an existing franchise that will take ten years to develop.

"Halo Infinite, a recent title from Microsoft's first-party Halo franchise, was in production [redacted], and cost almost [redacted] million to develop and bring to market," the document reads. "Other Triple-A games take even longer to develop. For instance, according to one Microsoft executive, [redacted], a forthcoming title from the [redacted] franchise, may take a decade to develop."

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Fans already have their theories as to what this franchise and game could be. Some speculate the aforementioned TES6, but Fallout 5 (or a spin-off akin to New Vegas), Gears of War, and Fable were all thrown out there as possible answers given the size of the redacted box.

It's worth noting that these games wouldn't necessarily be starting their ten-year development cycles today. It simply means that, by the end of development, it could have taken ten years to finish. The Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production right now, while Fable 4 has been in development for a few years, so we might not be waiting as long as 2033 to get our hands on whatever this game may be.

This document came to light thanks to the "Gamer Lawsuit" which was thrown out of court last month. For context, while the FTC sued, and the European Commission and CMA launched investigations, ten gamers also raised an antitrust lawsuit against