David Pierce, better known as Chesko in the Skyrim modding community, is now a Senior Designer at Bethesda Game Studios currently working on the upcoming Elder Scroll 6, according to an official interview on Bethesda.Net.
Pierce joined Bethesda full-time two years ago and worked on the economy design for Bethesda’s last release, Starfield. Currently, he’s working “with an amazing team on The Elder Scrolls 6.” The highly anticipated Elder Scrolls sequel is still likely years away. However, as Pete Hines confirmed in August 2023, the game was indeed moving into development by the time Starfield was launching and Pierce’s statement further corroborates that.
Bethesda’s practice of hiring prominent mod authors is not new. Before this instance, we know of Kris Takahashi (Interesting NPCs), Elianora (home mod aficionado), Stephanie Zachariadis (ex-lead writer for the upcoming Fallout London), and several others who started as hobbyist modders and ended up as full-time Bethesda devs. As Pierce says in the interview,
“Everything that I learned as a modder translated into my professional career; I feel like I came onboard with a broad perspective on our games and how they’re built.”
And developing mods is a process of finding creative solutions and resourcefulness. However, regarding being a part of a larger studio as compared to solo developing mods, Pierce says,
“It’s different now that I’m on a team, but every so often, I run into a unique problem that makes me reach into my bag of tricks.”
Talking about unique problems, Bethesda has to make The Elder Scrolls 6 count. Their last two major releases, Fallout 76 and Starfield have not been as well-received as they’d like. While MMO-focused 76 was a new direction for Bethesda and Starfield, a brand new IP for them; The Elder Scrolls 6, if anything, will be a home match for the RPG giant to win back some lost reputation.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is currently in development at Bethesda Game Studios.
