 Having completed work on Oblivion in 2006 , Bethesda Game Studios began work on Fallout 3 . It was during this time that the team began planning their next The Elder Scrolls game . From the outset , they had decided to set the new entry in the land of Skyrim , incorporating Dragons into the main theme of the game . Full development begun following the release of Fallout 3 in 2008 ; the developers considered Skyrim a spiritual successor to both Fallout 3 and previous The Elder Scrolls games . The game was developed by a team of roughly 100 people composed of new talent as well as of the series ' veterans . The production was supervised by Todd Howard , who was the director of many titles released by Bethesda Softworks . 
