Todd Howard

Fable's co-creator has released a new roguelike inspired by the games that influenced Todd Howard's work at Bethesda - and it's free.

Just before Starfield came out, the game’s reviews were dropped, and a consistent theme was seen within them. Specifically, these game reviewers kept talking about the amount of hours they put into the game overall, not just with the main storyline but within the whole game. Some of the reviewers had put in dozens of hours, and a few had put in over a hundred to two hundred hours into Bethesda’s new title! What that showed was that no matter what kind of gamer you were, you would have quite the adventure ahead of you. As we know now, that was by design.

Starfield was «made to played for a long time».

Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield launched last month and received praise from critics (check out our review) and players. However, with more than 1000 planets, extensive ship-building and several activities, the space-faring RPG’s journey is only beginning.

Starfield director Todd Howard has said that Starfield was intentionally made to be played for a long time.

Starfield director and Bethesda’s Todd Howard has talked about how so many triple-A games these days incorporate light RPG elements into their design, and what this meant for how the team approached its newest game.

Bethesda Game Studio’s creative director, Todd Howard, wasn’t expecting our Starfield ships to be so damn cool.

Obsessed with – or need more practice at – Starfield's lockpicking mini-game? Then I have good news – you can now Digipick to your heart's content courtesy of a new Digipick simulator browser game.

Bethesda boss Todd Howard reckons many games are some sort of RPG nowadays, which is partly why Starfield doubles down on the studio's classical role-playing style to stand out in the crowd.

Starfield director Todd Howard says that Bethesda's sci-fi RPG was «intentionally» designed to be played for a long time and that he expects to still be working to update the game for the next five years.

Games use all sorts of tricks to ease performance load, and while Starfield has had its fair share of optimisation woes (though Todd Howard sees things differently) it's not an exception to that rule. 

Bethesda has shadow dropped a new mobile game set in the Elder Scrolls universe.

We’ve seen some truly lengthy video game experiences over the years. For instance, Bethesda is a development studio known for creating some big RPG experiences. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a prime example of a game that continues to see big numbers over a decade after being released into the marketplace. Recently, Todd Howard, the game director behind Starfield, commented on long video games. Starfield is just the base right now, as we can see this game thrive for several years.

If there's one thing I love in this world, it's trinkets. Tchotchkes. Doodads and thingamajigs. Nothing enables this desire for collecting crud more than a good old-fashioned Bethesda game. Forks, mugs, spoons, bowls—you name it, it's probably in my inventory.

Bethesda boss Todd Howard says Starfield was designed and built for longevity, even more so than RPGs like Skyrim or any of the modern Fallouts, with the studio already considering how the game will evolve for years and years to come. 

Bethesda's CEO, Todd Howard has addressed some of the cut content in . The space ARPG was already an ambitious title, with a vast galaxy of over 100 planetary systems, and over 1000 planets — both handcrafted and procedurally generated — to explore, but Howard's recent comments suggested that exploring them could have been a more challenging task for players with resource management being more at the forefront of the game in its earlier stages of development.

If you're tired of Starfield encumbrance, guess what: it's your own fault. Even director Todd Howard will tell you that you should stop picking everything up.

Exploring Starfield's planets was previously a lot harder, Bethesda has revealed, before the developer decided to dial back some «very punitive» atmosphere effects.

Even before release, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty was confident Starfield would be the least buggy Bethesda game at launch. That proved to be the case, with most reviewers (including our own Francesco) praising it as the most polished Bethesda game released in recent years.

Starfield was extensively playtested by Bethesda devs often working from home, and Todd Howard says this approach worked so well that the studio's going to apply the method to its future games, with the studio's next confirmed, albeit far-off project obviously being The Elder Scrolls 6.

If you land and go exploring on one of Starfield's many planets, you might become afflicted with a status effect. It won't bother you too much, though, and you can cure the effect with an item or a quick trip to a doctor.

I've walked on nearly 200 different planets in Starfield in environments ranging from frozen tundra to baking infernos to toxic atmospheres. And in all that time I've only suffered one affliction that I felt a need to rush to a doctor to fix: I contracted a lung condition that eventually got so bad it made sprinting consume my oxygen supply in a matter of seconds, and I didn't have the meds to cure it myself.

Bethesda boss Todd Howard says Starfield was "basically done" by holiday 2022, and to help test the mammoth RPG, virtually everyone on the development team got a build to play on their own Xbox consoles and PCs at home.

As gamers have been reminded time and time again over the last several years, the bug testing phase of a video game’s development is arguably one of the most important things that has to be done well, or else the game will be incredibly problematic at launch. We can all think of recent titles in the last year or two that have suffered heavily because the game was rushed to release instead of spending more time in QA. With bigger titles like Starfield, the QA process is even MORE intensive because the developers have more to deal with regarding characters, worlds, vehicles, etc.

Bethesda is known for making big, blockbuster RPGs—but Starfield's space combat was a totally new frontier for the team. I've personally found a decent bit of fun in zipping around and knocking pirates out of the sky, even if it's clearly not the game's main focus. I don't envy the devs saddled with the task of balancing dogfights in space.

It's not easy to balance space combat without seriously dumbing down the enemies, Todd Howard says.

Plans change continuously in game development, and some content a team has spent months, even years, of resources on may not make it into the final release. Starfield is no exception, even with an eight-year development cycle. While speaking to Ted Price on the AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook Podcast, director Todd Howard highlighted how the game’s planets previously had much more punishing environmental effects.

Starfield director Todd Howard has revealed that exploring planets was originally a lot harder before Bethesda «nerfed the hell out of it.»

Starfield is easily one of the biggest video game releases of 2023. The title was highly anticipated for years, and it was the first new RPG from the Bethesda team in quite some time. So, a lot of interest was built around the gameplay experience, and with so much pressure, it’s likely that there were several changes made along the way. This game is now available, and players can go through the various quests and explore planets while we wait for some post-launch content to come out. However, looking back, the game director behind Starfield offered an example of a feature that got dialed back during development.

Todd Howard has shared a surprising insight about Starfield.

Starfield is the biggest Bethesda RPG to date, so of course features, mechanics, and ideas either got cut, reduced, or changed during development. This natural part of the development has been highlighted by Starfield director Todd Howard, who’s explained why a more in-depth planetary affliction system was cut down in favor of other mechanics.

Starfield's planets were originally supposed to be much more punishing for players, that is until Bethesda "nerfed the hell out of it," reveals Todd Howard.

Bethesda's latest video game release, , is an expansive science fiction RPG set in the year 2330. Although it features interesting storytelling, an outstanding soundtrack, as well as many other impressive gameplay mechanics, undoubtedly the most impressive (and occasionally most boring) feature of the game is the universe-sized map featuring over 1,000 unique planets spread across 100 star systems. Each planet has distinctive resources, weather, climates, flora, and fauna, making for a truly enormous experience.

If you're bummed that Starfield is not more like No Man's Sky, where you can seamlessly travel from space to planet, there's now a mod available that does just that.

Between a glowing Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty review wave and free, foundational changes in the 2.0 update, CDPR has finally made good on its troubled RPG's years-old promises.

One of the downsides of space exploration in Starfield is that you can't simply fly to different planets. Instead, you manually plot a course and then teleport to your destination. It's an effective way of getting from A to B, for sure, but it's not quite the flight experience many space explorers were hoping for. Thankfully, there's now a mod that makes traveling between planets a lot more immersive.

Attention, space cadets: If you can’t get enough of Bethesda’s new, space-faring RPG, you might be looking for ways to rep your fandom. We’ve got you covered. There's a galaxy of official Starfield-branded merchandise (like the rad limited edition Starfield controller), plus a number of unofficial suggestions that speak to our unshakeable spirit of exploration. In addition to gaming accessories, our collection includes fun apparel like a Chunks branded trucker cap, and a slick rolltop backpack from Alpha Industries, to give you some examples.

It's no secret that Starfield — out now on PC and Xbox Series S/X — is hands down one of the most monumental game launches of the year. For Bethesda, it's a gamble in uncharted territory as they undertake their first new universe in 25 years, set across the stars in a futuristic civilised corner of the Milky Way galaxy. For publisher Xbox, it's an opportunity to bounce back from a lacklustre 2022 slate and dominate the gaming conversation for a long time — probably years, given the staying power director Todd Howard's RPGs are notorious for. With over a thousand planets to explore, dashing factions to align with, and cosmic mysteries bubbling with political intrigue, Starfield aims to be the most complex spacefaring adventure of our generation. As such, it soars gracefully, but not without some turbulence.

During the E3 presentation in 2018, Bethesda took to the stage and teased an open-world RPG set in space and called it Starfield. It would be the first IP developed by Bethesda in over 25 years. After years of anticipation, the developer finally launched Starfield on September 6 exclusively for the Microsoft Xbox and Windows. Despite not even one month elapsing since it was launched, Starfield is already being lauded as the game of the year by many, with high critic scores and rave reviews from players.

A bunch of Microsoft documents that were supposed to be redacted were recently accidentally published online in unredacted form, leaking details on everything from Microsoft’s plans for a cloud-infused next-gen console, a new Xbox controller with haptic feedback, an Xbox Series X mid-gen refresh, and more. As part of that same leak, updated sales numbers for a number of Bethesda titles have also emerged (via ResetEra).

Starfield hasn’t been out in the wild for very long, but that hasn’t stopped modders already taking the time to change and — in some cases — improve the game for PC players. From a much more detailed inventory UI to adding DLSS and even adding the PlayStation Studios splash screen to the start of the game (yes, seriously!), there are already some great mods worth a look.

It looks like The Elder Scrolls 6 won't be releasing until 2026 at the very earliest, and our PlayStation pals are likely going to be missing out entirely.

A number of unannounced Bethesda and ZeniMax games have leaked from an internal document publicly shared as part of the ongoing Microsoft and FTC case around the Activision Blizzard acquisition. New iterations for some of the best PC games ever – including Doom, Dishonored, and Ghostwire Tokyo – appear to be in the works, alongside both an Oblivion and Fallout 3 remaster.

A massive leak of Bethesda's planned release schedule reveals plans for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3 remasters, as well as sequels like Dishonored 3 and Ghostwire: Tokyo 2.

Starfield is Bethesda's big new release, but now that it’s finally out in the wild, some have already turned their attention toward any incoming news on The Elder Scrolls VI. While some always assumed the game was a good way off, we now know not to expect it for another two to three years at the earliest. 

Microsoft paid $7.5 billion to buy ZeniMax, so it's no big surprise that the company would prioritize its own console platform.

According to a new court document revealed from the FTC v. Microsoft case, The Elder Scrolls 6 is expected to be released sometime during or after 2026, and is seemingly planned to be released solely on PC and Xbox (via The Verge). 

Xbox doesn't expect The Elder Scrolls 6 to release until at least 2026.

In the world of big-budget video game developers, Bethesda Game Studios has the rare gift of consistency. Play one of its games and you know, more or less, what to expect from all of them: an expansive open world filled with every product a Staples and/or medieval Whole Foods ever sold, mannequin-like characters that will stiffly run through gunfire to ask you to deliver a magic cheese curd, and, most importantly, literature. Tons of books, letters, notes, and emails for you, the player, to read at your leisure, totally unbothered by whatever world-ending crisis you are ostensibly supposed to ward off.

Starfield is getting support for Nvidia DLSS in a future update. In a blog post, Bethesda claimed that it will address some of the highly-requested features and make quality-of-life improvements through a series of regular updates. These include an in-game FOV slider, which so far, players have been adjusting by editing a .ini text file, alongside brightness and contrast controls, and an HDR calibration menu. But before that, the developer has dropped a small hotfix today, to help iron out any ‘top blocker bugs' that are interfering with the general experience in the beloved space RPG. Dubbed version 1.7.29, the hotfix brings improvements to Starfield's performance on the Xbox Series S/X by reducing crashes. It also fixes some quest-ending bugs.

Bethesda has announced that it plans to add official Nvidia DLSS support to Starfield.

It's been one week since Starfield officially launched, and Bethesda is already working on updates, including a bunch of quality-of-life features that the community has been begging for.

About two weeks before the release of Immortals of Aveum, EA's new first-person spell-shooter action title, Baldur's Gate III released to rapturous acclaim. Larian Studios' Dungeons & Dragons-based RPG - with its deeply rewarding quests, robust gameplay systems, and its evocative characters and storylines - became a global phenomenon, racking up over 800,000 concurrent players on steam. A strong contender for Game of the Year, Baldur's Gate III offers meaningful choices, compelling narratives, and hundreds of hours of immersive experience in the Forgotten Realms.

Do you think Starfield takes place in the same Earth as Fallout? Do you think it should have been officially so? As it turns out, this was a key decision in Starfield’s development.

Now that Bethesda’s massive space RPG has been with us for a little while, some of you are already wondering if there will be any Starfield DLC or not. You can’t have seen and done everything yet, though, surely?

Earth is an inhospitable wasteland in Starfield. Sounds familiar, aye? Nuclear war ravaged our little floating rock in the Fallout series, leaving much of the planet a smoking radioactive desert. However, the two games aren't connected, but Bethesda did consider setting Starfield in the Fallout universe at one point during development.

It’s no secret that Starfield requires a powerful gaming PC. Even if you have the latest generation hardware and the best graphics settings, the game will still crush your framerate. PC optimizations are on the way at last though for Nvidia users, because the latest game drivers improve Starfield performance by a small margin on systems that support Resizable BAR.

For reasons I won't get into here because it may constitute a little bit of a spoiler, the planet Earth in Starfield is a bit of a wasteland. But what if it was The Wasteland—that is, the post-nuclear hellscape of Bethesda's other big sci-fi-ish game series, Fallout? In an interview with The Washington Post, creative director Todd Howard said developers actually gave thought to the idea.

You may have heard about a little space game called Starfield, the gravitational pull from which risks swallowing all games discourse for months and possibly years to come. Perhaps that's no surprise for a game that's been in development and hyped for as long as any title that I can remember (well, ones that have shipped anyway) but it's easy to forget now the thing's in our hands that it was subject to multiple delays along the way.

Starfield's jogging speed can appear to be a little fast but thankfully if you're finding it to be an issue a few players have already created some mods to help. 

Starfield is getting official mod support in 2024, game director Todd Howard confirmed in an interview. Since the expansive space RPG's debut in early access, thousands of unofficial mods have been made available online, ranging from ones that enable Nvidia's DLSS upscaling system to making the inventory more compact and user-friendly. However, official modding tools make it easy to add fresh, custom content such as new planets and story quests, essentially opening the playing field for more experimentation. This has been the custom for Bethesda games at launch, where the modding community has been deeply involved with eliminating bugs or enhancing the experience, thanks to a deep understanding of the engine.

Bethesda has confirmed plans to introduce official mod support for Starfield in 2024.

Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield is available now for Xbox Series X/S and PC, amassing over six million players and topping physical sales charts in the United Kingdom. It was also in development for eight years, and despite that, as usually happens in the industry, some plans didn’t make it in.

It turns out that Starfield has a hidden, but surprisingly robust support for spacewalking - and all you have to do to unlock it is type a few commands into the in-game console.

There are a ton of mods available for Starfield already, adding everything from stormtroopers to support for Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling system. By the standards of most games, this number of mods would be considered a deluge. But Starfield is a Bethesda Game Studios game, which means it’s more like the calm before the storm.

Starfield director Todd Howard has spoken about plans for the game that didn’t make the final cut, including the idea for a very neat Fallout reference. 

Starfield players have discovered that the game doesn't render the sun if you have a Radeon AMD graphics card. 

If you're playing Starfield on an AMD graphics card, there's a good chance you've missed one of the most glaring bugs in the game, because you just won't have seen anything. The AMD-sponsored Bethesda game simply doesn't render a local star from any planet without an atmosphere on an AMD card.

Starfield was quickly one of the biggest and most anticipated video game titles launching this year. Fans eagerly counted down the days until Bethesda was ready to release their brand new RPG into the marketplace. However, now that the game is finally here, some of you might wonder when that official mod support will make its way out. Mods have been one of the reasons some games continue to see plenty of active players today. Likewise, Bethesda is no stranger to allowing mods and embracing community creations.

Starfield is getting official mod support in 2024 according to Bethesda development chief Todd Howard.

One of the biggest draws about Starfield is the number of planets you can explore. It’s not so much an open-world game as it is more of an open-galaxy title. With that, you might understandably want these giant balls of rock to look their best. That’s where the modding community comes into its own.

With millions of players having already jumped right into the thick of it with Starfield, it’s hard to deny the fact that a non-insignificant number of them are facing performance issues on powerful PC hardware. When the director Todd Howard was asked about these issues, he responded in a way that some might say was tone-deaf. Notably, he said that Starfield was optimized and that some PC gamers might simply need to upgrade their rigs for it to run properly. A bold statement, to be sure, but one that may also ring hollow following some strange discoveries from the open-source community.

Starfield has already smashed Skyrim's concurrent player record on Steam.

Xbox’s head of gaming says The Elder Scrolls 6’s exclusivity still hasn’t been decided.

Modders have already been getting busy in Starfield, rolling out both useful changes, and things that are just a bit of fun. One such fun mod has replaced all of the United Colonies’ guards in New Atlantis with Stormtroopers, which is something I think we can all say we saw coming. 

Starfield game director Todd Howard has confirmed that the game's official mod tools will be released next year. 

Bethesda are adding official support for Starfield mods in 2024, Bethesda Games Studios top banana Todd Howard has told Famitsu in a Japanese language interview. People are already modding Starfield, of course - the options range from "Potato Mode" functionality for lower-spec computers, through somewhat controversial Starfield DLSS mods, to the all-important Starfield script extender, which lets other modders add "scripting capabilities and functionality" to the game. But Bethesda have yet to release proper in-house tools, aka Creation Kit 2.

Starfield has you spending plenty of time in your spaceships, so it’s worth investing some time into making them as capable as possible. Some players have grown quite attached to their ships, and it’s not a surprise, as the game gives you the freedom to customize them as you please. If you’re sufficiently ambitious and have the imagination for it, some incredibly impressive ships can be made, including the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars.

In an interview with Famitsu, Starfield lead and Bethesda frontman Todd Howard stated that the game's mod support «will be available next year» (obtained via machine translation), which likely refers to Starfield's equivalent to the Creation Kit modding tools for Skyrim and Fallout 4.

Bethesda games have courted modders for decades at this point and the developer’s space epic, Starfield, is no different. But despite already receiving several handy mods just a week after launch, the game won’t be receiving official mod support until next year.