Elder Scrolls 6 First 10 Hours: What to Prioritize Based on Every Bethesda RPG Pattern

You know that feeling when you start a new Bethesda game and three hours later you realize you've been doing side quests in the wrong direction and your build is already compromised? I've done that in every single TES game since Morrowind. And I refuse to do it again in TES6. tbh, that's half the reason I'm writing this.

The problem with pre-release planning for a game that doesn't have a date yet is that you're working with fragments. But honestly, those fragments add up. Between the official reveals, Todd Howard interviews, and Bethesda's design patterns across their last four major releases, you can map out a surprisingly coherent strategy for the first 10 hours. I mean, it's not like Bethesda suddenly forgot how to design an RPG intro.

Minute One Through Hour Three: The Tutorial Trap

Every Bethesda game since Oblivion has started you in a constrained environment. Prison, vault, spaceship. The TES6 announcement trailer opens with a pan across mountainous terrain and coastline that looks like the Iliac Bay region, and the camera settles on what appears to be a fortress or coastal settlement. My guess? You start in or near that structure, and it's either a prison break or a shipwreck.

Todd Howard loves the prisoner trope. It's his signature. I'd bet real money TES6 opens with your character in chains.

The tutorial section will teach you movement, combat, probably introduce the ship mechanics if they're as central as Starfield's ship was, and funnel you toward the first major city. Do not wander off immediately. The tutorial zone in Bethesda games usually has higher-than-average loot density to reward exploration before the world opens up.

What to grab before leaving the tutorial: any unique weapon, any skill book, any crafting materials. Especially crafting materials. If settlement building is as material-hungry as Fallout 4's was, those 15 iron ingots in the tutorial chest might save you an hour of mining later. You know, the usual Bethesda stuff - loose gems behind barrels, a skill book under a skeleton, weirdly valuable junk that exists purely to fund your first horse.

Hour Three Through Six: First City, First Faction

You'll hit a major city. Hammerfell has 12 or 13 of them with greater urban density than Skyrim, so whichever one you land in will be busy. My money is on Sentinel as the first major hub, given its historical importance as the capital of Hammerfell and its position on the Iliac Bay.

In every Bethesda game, the first city contains at least two joinable factions, a player home (expensive), a blacksmith, an alchemist, and a general goods merchant. Your priorities in order:

First, talk to every named NPC. Not every random guard. Named NPCs give quests, sell training, and sometimes drop lore that points you to hidden locations. Second, find the faction recruitment NPCs. The Crowns vs Forebears political divide means at minimum two factions will be recruiting openly. Third, check every bookshelf. Skill books have been a Bethesda staple since Daggerfall and there's zero reason they'd stop now.

One thing I learned from Oblivion the hard way: the first faction you join defines your early gear. Don't commit to the first recruiter you meet. Scout all available factions in your starting city, check what their first quest reward is (usually visible in dialogue or a quest journal hint), and pick the one that gives gear matching your build.

And for the love of the Divines, pick up every alchemy ingredient. Hammerfell's desert climate means different flora than Skyrim or Cyrodiil. What looks like random cactus might be the key ingredient for a potion that saves your life at hour 12. I'm not even kidding - in Oblivion I ignored Nirnroot for 20 hours and missed half the alchemy progression.

Hour Six Through Ten: Ship, Settlement, or Skills?

This is where the path forks. Based on what Starfield taught us, TES6 will present you with three early-game progression paths and let you choose. Your ship needs upgrades. A settlement site becomes available. Your combat skills need focused training before enemies scale past you.

If ship combat is anything like Starfield's, the starter vessel handles early threats fine but falls apart against organized pirate fleets. One upgrade to weapons or shields early prevents a lot of reloading. I'd prioritize the ship first, because in Starfield, ship combat was unavoidable in certain quest chains and an under-upgraded ship meant death. Kinda learned that one the hard way.

Settlement building, if it follows Fallout 4's model, unlocks after a specific quest. Don't rush it. The materials you've been hoarding matter more once you know what structures cost. In Fallout 4, early settlement building was a trap because you'd spend all your wood on walls and have nothing left for water purifiers, which were the actual progression gate.

Skill training follows Bethesda's familiar pattern: trainers in cities charge gold per level. In Skyrim you could train 5 times per character level. If TES6 keeps that limit, plan your training sessions. Don't blow training on a skill you can level naturally. Use training for skills that are slow to level (in Skyrim, Restoration and Heavy Armor were painfully slow) and save the fast-leveling skills for natural progression.

The Dragon Problem

Dragons are returning with improved combat and progression mechanics. In Skyrim, dragons started appearing after you killed the first one at the Western Watchtower. Before that trigger, the world was dragon-free and relatively peaceful.

If TES6 has a similar trigger, you control when dragons enter your game. This is huge for planning. Delaying the dragon trigger means you can explore, build your settlement, upgrade your ship, and level your core skills without random dragon attacks interrupting everything. In Skyrim, triggering dragons early made certain quests nearly impossible because a dragon would kill the quest NPC before you could talk to them.

When you're ready for dragons, make sure you have ranged damage. Bows, destruction magic, or whatever the naval equivalent is. Melee-only builds can fight dragons in Skyrim but it's miserable waiting for them to land. If TES6 dragons are smarter about staying airborne, ranged damage stops being optional.

The Honest Part

Nobody has played this game except Bethesda employees. Everything I've written comes from official statements, leaked concept documents, community analysis, and pattern recognition across every Bethesda RPG since 2002. Some of it will be wrong. The ship combat system might work completely differently than Starfield's. Settlement building might be more like Hearthfire than Fallout 4. I guess the faction structure could surprise everyone.

But I'd rather go in with a plan and adapt than wander aimlessly while my build falls apart. That's the real first 10 hours of any Bethesda game - not following a walkthrough, but having enough structure to recover from mistakes before they become permanent. And if half my predictions turn out wrong, well, that's sort of the fun of it.