The Elder Scrolls timeline, explained

The Elder Scrolls timeline is a mess, and it is a mess on purpose. Bethesda's lore is written almost entirely by unreliable in-universe narrators: priests with agendas, Imperial scholars flattering their emperor, Khajiit who insist the calendar itself is wrong. On top of that, the setting has a built-in excuse for contradictions called the Dragon Break, a period where the god of time literally stops working and multiple contradictory histories all become true. Once you accept that the chaos is a feature, the actual chronology underneath is surprisingly tidy, and every game slots neatly onto it. First, the notation. Tamriel counts years within named eras, so "3E 427" means year 427 of the Third Era. That is when Morrowind takes place. When an era ends, the count resets: the Oblivion Crisis ends in 3E 433, and the very next year is 4E 1. Fan wikis and this guide use that notation throughout. The eras at a glance The structure below is stable, long-settled lore, documented in depth on UESP's history pages (accessed 2026-07-04). Era What it covers Starts with Ends with Dawn Era Mythic prehistory Creation of Mundus Time itself is non-linear here; no real dates exist Merethic Era Elven prehistory Counted backwards, from roughly ME 2500 down to ME 1 Rise of human civilisation First Era Recorded history begins Year zero of the Camoran Dynasty Fall of the Reman Dynasty Second Era The Interregnum and worse Rule passes to the Akaviri Potentates Tiber Septim conquers all of Tamriel in 2E 896 Third Era The Septim Empire Tiber Septim declares a new era Oblivion Crisis and Martin Septim's death, 3E 433 Fourth Era The current era Aftermath of the Oblivion Crisis Ongoing; Skyrim sits at 4E 201 Two quirks worth flagging. The Dawn Era cannot be dated at all because time had not yet settled into a straight line, which matters again when we get to the Dragon Break. And the Merethic Era runs backwards, a scholarly convention invented later, counting down toward the First Era rather than up. Where every game sits Here is every Elder Scrolls game in lore order, not release order. Placements follow UESP and match the round-ups on Digital Trends and esports.net (both accessed 2026-07-04). Game In-universe date Released The Elder Scrolls Online 2E 582 2014 Redguard 2E 864 1998 Arena 3E 389 to 3E 399 1994 Shadowkey 3E 397 2004 Battlespire 3E 398 1997 Daggerfall 3E 405 (main quest concludes 3E 417) 1996 Morrowind 3E 427 2002 Oblivion 3E 433 2006 Legends ~4E 175 to 4E 201 2017 Blades 4E 180 2019 Skyrim 4E 201 2011 The obvious oddity: the earliest point on the timeline belongs to one of the newest games. ESO sits in 2E 582, deep in the Interregnum, the lawless four-century gap between the Reman and Septim empires, the better part of a thousand years before Skyrim. Redguard follows in 2E 864 during Tiber Septim's wars of conquest, on the island of Stros M'Kai off Hammerfell. ESO deserves a footnote, because it has now been running for over a decade of real time. ZeniMax's official position is that the calendar does not advance with each chapter. The studio's Loremaster said as much in a 2019 Reddit AMA, telling players to "assume the year is still 2E 582," with the nuance that events begin in 582 and the precise timing of later chapters is deliberately "not committed to lore" (discussed at length on the official ESO forums; UESP likewise files all ESO storylines under 2E 582). So Necrom, Gold Road, and everything since all pile into the same crowded year. It is awkward, and it is intentional. Then the Third Era belongs to the classic single-player run. Arena's Imperial Simulacrum spans 3E 389 to 399, with the spin-offs Shadowkey (3E 397) and Battlespire (3E 398) tucked inside it. Daggerfall opens in 3E 405 and its main quest detonates in 3E 417 (more on that detonation below, because it broke time). Morrowind lands in 3E 427, and Oblivion closes the entire era in 3E 433. The Fourth Era then belongs to Skyrim in 4E 201, with the mobile titles Legends and Blades filling in the Great War years just before it. If you are less interested in lore order and more in which of these are actually worth playing today, that is a different question with a different answer, and one better settled game by game than on a single chronology. The Dragon Break, or why the wikis argue Akatosh is the god of time. A Dragon Break is what happens when he fractures: linear time stops, causality goes on holiday, and mutually exclusive events all occur. When time re-knits, everyone remembers a different, contradictory version, and all of them are right. Bethesda invented this device partly out of metaphysical ambition and partly as the most elegant retcon machine in gaming. The big one is the Middle Dawn, the longest Dragon Break on record: one thousand and eight years, from 1E 1200 to 1E 2208. Per UESP's Dragon Break page (accessed 2026-07-04), it was caused by the Marukhati Selectives, a fanatic sect of the Alessian Order under Arch-Prelate Fervidius Tharn, who used the Staff of Towers and danced on the White-Gold Tower in an attempt to cleave the hated elven aspects of Auri-El out of Akatosh. It worked about as well as dancing a god apart ever could: time shattered for a millennium and the Staff of Towers broke into eight pieces. Even the 1008-year figure is contested in-universe, since the Khajiit claim their lunar records show nothing unusual happened at all. Three in-game books do the heavy lifting here, and they are all worth reading in full: "Where Were You When the Dragon Broke?" collects four eyewitness accounts of the Middle Dawn that flatly contradict each other. Better still, copies of this book circulate in the Second Era while referencing Third Era events. The book's own existence is evidence of non-linear time. That is the level Bethesda's lore team was operating on. "The Dragon Break Re-Examined" by Fal Droon is the in-lore skeptic's take, arguing the whole thing is a calendar transcription error. The joke is that Droon describes the fall of the Septim Dynasty in the past tense, in a book present in games set before the dynasty fell. The debunker is himself proof of the thing he is debunking. "The Warp in the West" documents the second famous break, and it exists to clean up a video game. That second break, the Warp in the West (also called the Miracle of Peace), happened over the 9th to 11th of Frostfall, 3E 417. Daggerfall ends with the player giving the Mantella to one of seven factions, activating the giant god-golem Numidium, with seven mutually exclusive endings. Bethesda's canonical answer: all seven happened at once. Numidium's activation caused a localised Dragon Break, and when the dust settled, the Iliac Bay's absurd patchwork of 44 squabbling statelets had collapsed into four consolidated kingdoms: Daggerfall, Sentinel, Wayrest, and Orsinium (UESP, Lore:The Warp in the West; the in-game book of the same name). It is the boldest canonisation trick any studio has pulled, and it is why veteran fans smile when newer players ask which Daggerfall ending is "real." Where TES 6 likely lands Now the part everyone actually scrolls to. Facts first, rumours clearly labelled after, because this topic drowns in confident nonsense. What is actually confirmed. The Elder Scrolls VI was announced on 10 June 2018 at E3 with a teaser of about 36 seconds. As of 10 June 2026 that made exactly eight years with no second trailer and no release date (Wikipedia, The Elder Scrolls VI; ScreenRant's anniversary coverage, June 2026). At the FTC v. Microsoft hearing in June 2023, Phil Spencer estimated the game was "five plus years away," and leaked internal Microsoft documents from the same case put launch at 2026 at the earliest; neither has been superseded by anything official. Full production started in September 2023 once Starfield shipped, and Bethesda's 30th-anniversary note of 25 March 2024 said "early builds are already being played." The 2025-2026 drip-feed has been consistent in tone. Todd Howard told GQ in November 2025 the game was "still a long way off," while teasing that a shadow-drop was possible and, asked directly whether TES 6 could launch the way Oblivion Remastered did, answering "you might say that was a test run" (via Game Informer, 10 November 2025). In a Game Informer interview on 16 December 2025 he said it is "progressing really well... the majority of the studio's on 6... we all wish it went a little bit faster - or a lot faster - but it's a process that we want to get right." On 18 February 2026, on Kinda Funny, he confirmed the game runs on Creation Engine 3, is playable ("we're able to play it"), is "about to pass a big milestone internally" (about to - not already passed), and is "coming back to that kind of classic style," meaning a classic Bethesda RPG in the Oblivion and Skyrim mould. In June 2026, in Entertainment Weekly's Xbox 25th-anniversary cover feature, Howard called it Bethesda's "biggest project right now" with "the majority of the studio" on it: "We know we need to get it right, and it's been a long time." Xbox content chief Matt Booty added that he has personally seen it running, "it looks amazing, and it's coming along well," with a reveal "at the right time" (ScreenRant and Game Rant, June 2026). The game then skipped the June 2026 Xbox Games Showcase, and Bethesda's own 40th birthday on 28 June 2026 passed without so much as a teaser (GamingBible, 2026-06-29). As of 4 July 2026 there is no date, no window, no title, and no confirmed setting. One more genuinely interesting data point: former Bethesda dev Kurt Kuhlmann said in a 2026 interview that the team reached internal consensus on the setting back during Fallout 4's development, though no story work had begun then, and he declined to name it. Now the rumours, labelled as such. A December 2025 4chan leak claimed the title "The Elder Scrolls VI: Iliac," a Hammerfell plus coastal High Rock map, codename "WhiteBeach," eleven major cities, playable Crowns and Forebears factions against a Thalmor invasion, and a Summer 2026 reveal with a holiday 2026 or Q1 2027 release. That last part has already failed: Summer 2026's big showcase came and went with no TES 6, which should heavily discount everything else in the leak. Spanish leaker eXtas1s claimed Hammerfell and naval battles in February 2025; he has a mixed track record, this echoed existing fan speculation, and his reveal-window claim also lapsed. The broader Hammerfell inference rests on 2018 teaser terrain analysis, Bethesda's 2020 candle-on-the-map tease, and an alleged High Rock and Hammerfell scratch-map spotted on a Starfield dev console in 2021. Widely believed, never confirmed, and the terrain-matching evidence is weaker than fans admit, since much of Tamriel has rocky coastline and Hammerfell's signature Alik'r Desert is nowhere in the teaser. Release chatter as of mid-2026 clusters on 2027 to 2028, with 2028 "sounding like the safer bet" per the rumour round-ups, which at least squares with Spencer's 2023 estimate. If Hammerfell does pan out, our guide to the Hammerfell evidence weighs every clue. The chronology argument, which is not a rumour. Every mainline single-player Elder Scrolls since Arena has moved the clock forward, never backward. And Skyrim leaves a loaded gun on the table: the White-Gold Concordat is repeatedly framed in-game as a truce rather than a peace, with "The Great War" by Legate Justianus Quintius and plenty of dialogue pointing at a second war with the Thalmor. The straightforward reading is a Fourth Era setting some time after 4E 201, shaped by that unresolved conflict. But be precise about what is known: Bethesda has confirmed neither the year nor the province, and anyone who states either as fact is guessing. For the full running dossier, see everything we know about TES 6. A reading order for lore newcomers You do not need to play eleven games to follow this timeline. Play Skyrim or Oblivion first; they are the best on-ramps and the wikis will backfill the rest. If chronology is what hooks you, Daggerfall (free on Steam and GOG, best via Daggerfall Unity) plus the book "The Warp in the West" is the single most rewarding deep cut, because you experience the event that broke time and then read the canon cleanup. ESO is the place to inhabit the Second Era, with the caveat that its entire decade of content is wedged into 2E 582. And read the three Dragon Break texts above in order: eyewitnesses, skeptic, aftermath. No other game series rewards reading its own fake historiography like this one. Sources UESP: Lore:History, Lore:Dragon Break, Lore:Warp in the West, and era pages - accessed 2026-07-04 In-game texts: "Where Were You When the Dragon Broke?", "The Dragon Break Re-Examined" (Fal Droon), "The Warp in the West", "The Great War" (Legate Justianus Quintius); mirrored at the Imperial Library Digital Trends / esports.net, "All Elder Scrolls games in order" - accessed 2026-07-04 ESO Loremaster Reddit AMA on the 2E 582 dating - 2019, via official ESO forum threads Wikipedia: The Elder Scrolls VI (announcement 2018-06-10; FTC hearing June 2023; production start September 2023; Bethesda anniversary note 2024-03-25; Kinda Funny interview 2026-02-18; Kuhlmann interview 2026) - accessed 2026-07-04 Game Informer - Todd Howard via GQ, 2025-11-10; exclusive interview, 2025-12-16 Entertainment Weekly Xbox 25th feature via ScreenRant, Game Rant, and OpenCritic - June 2026 GamesRadar+ TES 6 hub and June 2026 Xbox Games Showcase coverage; GamingBible on the Bethesda 40th no-show - 2026-06-29 Rumour coverage (labelled as such above): FandomWire / Times of Games / VGTimes on the "Iliac" leak - December 2025; outsidergaming.com on eXtas1s - February 2025; Inverse / PC Gamer / Game Rant / ScreenRant on the Hammerfell evidence trail - 2018 to 2021, assessed July 2026 Discuss this on the forum Dragon Breaks for beginners: how all of Daggerfall's endings happened at once The Elder Scrolls 6 in mid-2026: everything we actually know The Towers: the quiet metaphysics that secretly runs every Elder Scrolls plot