On December 31, the day of the New Year, Bethesda tweeted a cryptic message on the official Elder Scrolls Twitter account: "Transcribe the past, paint the future. Have a Happy New Year." On the surface, it's a pretty standard year-end message, but the crap about transcribing and mapping, and the existence of the map, has fans wondering if there's more to the story.

Several theories are floating around as to its meaning. In this lively Reddit thread, most agree that the third candle represents the "future" mentioned in the tweet, suggesting that "The Elder Scrolls 6" is set in Hammerfell, home of the Red Guard. But the first candle is puzzling: it is not on the map, but over the sea north of Skyrim, perhaps signifying the arrival of the Atmorans.

On Twitter, however, followers seem to have noted the date on the coin and map at the top of the image: 4E 182, which is several years before "The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim". This has led some to speculate that the next installment of "The Elder Scrolls" may be quite closely related to the previous one. It was also confirmed (insofar as this is considered "confirmation") that the tweet is not about "The Elder Scrolls Online."

It is possible that all of this is moot, and that it was, in fact, a nice "Happy New Year" tweet using assets from "Skyrim" that Bethesda had lying around. It's a bit of a surprise, since Bethesda has said almost nothing about "The Elder Scrolls 6" since its dramatic announcement in 2018, other than that it won't be released until after the sci-fi RPG "Starfield" (no release date as of yet).

Thanks, GameInformer.