Todd Howard says Elder Scrolls 6 “most definitely” has more trees than Skyrim, and now I’m pinning Valenwood to the location conspiracy board

The Elder Scrolls 6 is right up there with GTA 6 in terms of the most anticipated games, but we still know precious little about it, despite there being more than seven years between its reveal trailer and now. That said, Bethesda director and executive producer Todd Howard has just dropped one of the only hard details about the game itself so far, even if it ends up meaning very little in the long run.

In a genuinely fascinating video from content creator Any Austin, the question we’ve all been wondering for almost 15 years is answered: “How many trees are there in Skyrim?” We all know Skyrim’s map is massive and densely populated with pine trees, but just how many are there? The answer is 46,430 trees, in case you just want to know. Any Austin calculated this “by walking the world, running real statistical surveys, and then checking the game files,” and without the use of mods or wikis, but before he reached his conclusion, he managed to get Todd Howard himself to make his own guess, which turned out to be wildly inaccurate.