i think its a panic project that was fired up quickly because Starfield failed so miserably.

unless this was just a side project that a few devs were working on and it was latched on to as a product that could be focused on.

i suspect that while todd was failing to put out fires, a couple devs were like "should we tell them we've been messing around with Oblivion assets in our new engine?"

What's weird is that they're still keeping it a secret even though it's been rumored for months. We know it's coming, but they're still acting like it's going to be a surprise.

Bethesda used to have a very short time between announcements and release. This game isn't made by them, but they probably made the devs keep a tight lid on it.