The 30th anniversary of "The Elder Scrolls": In honor of this major birthday, Bethesda Softworks has released a message that looks back on its long history and teases what's to come.

"Daggerfall" set the template for the current "Elder Scrolls" series, and "Morrowind," the first console version of the series, launched "The Elder Scrolls" into the mainstream of gamers. But Arena is where it all began, where "the whole of Tamriel is generated and free to be explored."

"Hundreds of developers have devoted their time to The Elder Scrolls over the past 30 years. As the series has grown, so have we." To this day, each chapter has been about all of us living a different life in a different world."

The latest chapter in the series, which still does not have an official title, was announced at E3 in June 2018 with a brief teaser, but nothing else at all." The studio said it was to "give people a better understanding of where we are and where we are going. (The pitchforks and torches apparently played a part, too.)

And it's been going on for as long as Bethesda has kept a firm focus on Starfield. Since then, there have been little tidbits, teasers, mild expressions of regret, and warnings that TES6 still has a long, long way to go. However, today's message also includes a small reference to the next installment, which will apparently be playable in a small and limited way.

"Last but not least, yes, we are working on the next chapter, The Elder Scrolls 6," Bethesda wrote.

"Even now, returning to Tamriel and playing early builds fills us with the same joy, excitement, and anticipation for adventure.

What the heck, it's not much, but it's something." Somewhere in Bethesda's basement, someone is playing the next "Elder Scrolls" game, which means (among other things) they know where it will take place - something we don't yet know.

My hope is that Bethesda will take a cue from "Morrowind" and return to the series' strangeness with a trip to "Black Marsh," "Elsweyr," or "Valenwood," but I'm not at that point yet: the previous "Oblivion" and " Skyrim" may have been relatively generic fantasy adventures by comparison, but they were also very popular games, and it is hard to argue with their success.

As our contribution to the 30th anniversary, we asked Elder expert Jodi McGregor to rank all the Elder Scrolls mainline games. Nostalgia would probably compel him to swap "Daggerfall" for "Skyrim" (or at least "Oblivion"), but otherwise he nailed it, and touched on why it's not a good idea to reference "Morrowling": "The Elder Scrolls has since seldom played the kind of avant-garde, strange game that rewards the kind of analysis and theorizing that has become less welcome these days.

We're also digging through the magazine archives and republishing old reviews so you can enjoy more of our thoughts on these games when they were hot and new: The Elder Scrolls: The Elder Scrolls: Arena is now very outdated (30 years is practically an eternity in the world of video games), but if you want a taste of where it all began, you can play it for free on Steam and GOG.