Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be on the Nintendo Switch

Confirming the previous big hints, Bethesda Game Studios revealed that the award-winning The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will debut on the Nintendo Switch.

Todd Howard, director of Bethesda Game Studios, announced the game on stage at the Nintendo Switch unveiling event tonight in Japan.

“The Nintendo Switch is classically Nintendo and something all new, and we want to thank them for letting us be a part of it,” Howard said.

Todd Howard of Bethesda announces Skyrim for the Nintendo Switch.
Todd Howard of Bethesda announces Skyrim for the Nintendo Switch.

Skyrim was a huge hit after it was released in November 2011 on Windows, the PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360. It sold an estimated 30 million copies across all platforms, but it never made it to other Nintendo consoles. It came out in late 2016 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in a Special Edition. Now Bethesda is finally bringing it to Nintendo fans.

That’s a sign that Nintendo is reaching out to developers and publishers that it hasn’t had before, and that the Switch is quite capable of running big open world games.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.