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(RUMOR) - Bethesda Planning "Secret" E3 Announcement

According to Abstract360, the latest issue of Japanese mag Famitsu reports that a few big companies still have unannounced surprises to reveal at E3, including Electronic Arts, Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Sega, and Ubisoft -- which is all more or less to be expected. But also on that list is Bethesda, which despite having released their E3 lineup earlier this week, is listed as having a "secret" announcement left for E3 as well.
So what could this supposed secret announcement be? Well, we know what it’s not, as Bethesda already confirmed they’ll be showing Fallout: New Vegas, Brink, Hunted, and id Software’s Rage at the show. But beyond that, it’s really anyone’s guess. And unsurprisingly, the prevailing guess across the web right now is a new installment in the Elder Scrolls series -- either The Elder Scrolls V, or perhaps the previously rumored Elder Scrolls MMO.

According to a source speaking to VG247 back in January, Bethesda was planning to announce an Elder Scrolls MMO last year, but ended up pushing the announcement back (for unexplained reasons). Court documents from Bethesda’s legal dispute with Interplay also mentioned Bethesda was apparently working on an MMO since 2006, with "close to a hundred people" on the project. Bethesda, however, has yet to explicitly confirm or deny the existence of an Elder Scrolls MMO.

As for an offline Elder Scrolls V, there’s been some contradictory reports about whether Bethesda even has plans for it. Back in August of last year, Bethesda game director Todd Hines said they had "no current plans" to make another game in the Elder Scrolls series. However, not long after that, an official Elder Scrolls novel was released that seemed to leak plans for a new game, as the novel was initially described by the publishing house as "[partly bridging] the gap for the next game, which is set 200 years after the Oblivion crisis."

All of which leaves us with...well, nothing but a lot of speculation concerning this supposed "secret," really. We’ll see what surprise (if any) Bethesda really does have planned for E3 when it starts June 15.