::some of you may remember the David Lee Roth video for "Just a Gigalo" which begins with Dave thinking to himself "Now if -I- were going to make a video, I'd make it just...like...this...::
I think Skyrim is a safe bet. While I think we'll get a very Solstheim-y experience I suspect it won't be all mountains, snow, and polar bears. There are sections of Finland that don't look like the arctic. I would expect fjords (at least on the coast) and likely some kind of sailing-mechanic. I'm pretty sure we'll see a considerable amount of lycanthropy as people have been screaming for it ever since Bloodmoon. There's gotta be Daedra, probably Akaviri snake-men (finally!) and maybe Dunmer settlers....who knows. If the rumor that the game will take place 200 years after TESIV is accurate we could have all kinds of good stuff going on. There will definitely be something regarding Skyrim's tower (Snow-throat, I think?) and I suspect some kind of political system similar to the House system in Morrowind - this for all the people (like me) who really wanted the Elder Council quests.
Blah blah blah. Here's my main thing. TES has always been about "Be who you want to be, go where you want to go, do what you want to do; live another life in another world". This is the Bethesda mantra. As awesome as Morrowind was (is) Oblivion set the bar even higher. Having played some of the older Beth games (Call of Cthulhu, Pirates of the Carribean) I can see something of how they progress from game to game (fast travel in PotC was vastly improved in OB). FO3 made some pretty huge steps forward as far as gameplay, AI, etc. I would expect Beth to take all these things and improve them even more (the whole re-inventing thing). I maintain that the (may I be honest? OVERLONG) silence regarding TESV is because Beth has something pretty spectacular in the works and are working out the bugs. Whatever TESV will be like, expect them to follow the mantra.
The fact that some console games are now including a second disk makes me hope we may get a 2 or (joy!) multi-disk TESV with ridiculous amounts of world to explore and innumerable dungeons to plunder. I might be wrong. But given the advances from Morrowind to Oblivion (I know not everyone shares this view), I expect TESV will be AWE-inspiring.
Or as one video game clerk said "Every time Bethesda puts out a new game the industry invents new awards to give them."
Get ready, muthseras.