Bruce Nesmith, who served as the lead designer for "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" and was deeply involved in the development of "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" and "Fallout 3," has pointed out two areas he believes need improvement for the officially titled "The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel."
According to gaming media outlet Insider Gaming, during an interview on the podcast "Examining Games" with host Steven Lake, Nesmith was asked about his expectations for "The Elder Scrolls VI." His answer was straightforward: mount systems and ladder interactions.
"The areas I most hope to see improved—actually, there are two points. These features were either missing or insufficiently developed in the previous game due to development capacity constraints at the time," Nesmith stated. "I hope for a more fully realized mount system, which is a point players have long complained about; I'm not alone in this thinking, but developing mounts is actually very complex."
Horses in "Skyrim" could vertically climb slopes, but they occasionally triggered limb-clipping bugs, causing their legs to twist and flail like spaghetti into bizarre, anomalous shapes. The physics for horses were so outrageous that players widely agreed the best solution was to unlock Shadowmere as early as possible—this undead warhorse could withstand the "ravages" of the game's physics engine. That said, back in 2011, very few games managed to implement mount systems well.
"Mount systems are truly difficult to develop, involving many tricky trade-offs," Nesmith continued. "In 'Skyrim,' you can indeed ride horses, but that's about all you can do—just ride them for travel. I think more interactions should be added, such as mounted combat or having horses cooperate with players in battle, among other features."
Nesmith's belief that the mount system should be optimized and gameplay functions expanded is certainly reasonable. "The Elder Scrolls Online" has already demonstrated the rich possibilities for mounts within the series. If the new installment remains limited to just riding horses for travel, it would feel like a significant step backward, especially given the game's setting in Hammerfell. Perhaps we can look forward to both a more refined mount system and camel mounts.
Then there are ladders, probably a nightmare for game developers, second only to doors in terms of development difficulty. "Another point might sound a bit strange; the studio has actually been exploring this, but we still haven't implemented true manual ladder climbing," Nesmith said. "It sounds simple, even trivial, but the inability to manually climb ladders greatly limits the art team's space for designing multi-layered scenes. As you know, in 'Skyrim,' all ladders simply teleport you to the top with a click, otherwise, you have to take the stairs."
"But implementing realistic ladder interactions requires solving a whole bunch of technical issues. Our programmers back then plainly listed the problems, saying: 'You guys finalize the solutions for these issues, and then I can calculate the required development effort.' This single point directly added quite a bit of trouble to development."
"The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind" featured levitation magic, allowing players to fly into giant mushroom towers to find mages. As absurd as it sounds, I actually think programming levitation magic might be simpler than implementing ladders. However, if vertical exploration in The Elder Scrolls no longer relies on slow, collision-free floating but instead features genuine ladder interactions, the experience would undoubtedly improve significantly. Imagine layered city designs, more dimensional dungeons, multi-story buildings, and attics in player homes—all becoming a reality.
No matter what form Bethesda ultimately gives "Sentinel," it's interesting that even the lead designer of "Skyrim" hopes the new title will offer players more freedom—a demand players have been voicing for years.