I'm curious what the design, and reaction to, of Starfield might say about what we'll expect from ES6. For three games now (Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Starfield), have been marked by Settlement building and Radiant quests.

While radiant quests were there in Skyrim, in these later games it felt a lot like Bethesda were making it a core part of the mission design structure. There are a lot of blurred lines in Starfield that make it difficult to tell them apart. (That's more a comment on main missions being so generic than the radiant quests being so good, unfortunately).

Settlement building seems to be a core part of Bethesda's DNA now, and I wouldn't be surprised if the narrative follows a Kingmaker style where you build up a settlement of rebels over time or similar. I imagine the other ES staples will be tied to this too, Thieves Guild = establishing a branch within your new settlement to attack Big Bad Evil Vs joining an established one etc.

I really wonder how much of this poor reaction to Starfield makes its way through to actual change, but my feeling is ES6 will have a lot of hype, but similar feelings of disappointment. I hope I'm proved wrong.