Fallout 76 landed with all the grace of an atom bomb. Back when it first released, PC Gamer's Christopher Livingston called it a «A beautifully crafted but ultimately repetitive world», giving it a 60 in his Fallout 76 review.
27.10.2023 - 23:07 / gameranx.com / Todd Howard / Phil Spencer / Jim Ryan / Pete Hines / Doug Bowser / Bruce Nesmith / Howard
Stop for a second and picture your favorite video game developer or publisher. It doesn’t matter their “scale” as long as they’re prominent. More than likely, you can name-drop at least one or two people who are the “faces” of that company. For example, Nintendo has Eiji Aonuma, Shigeru Miyamoto, Doug Bowser, etc. Microsoft has Phil Spencer, Sony has/had Jim Ryan, and on it goes. For Bethesda, they have/had many people who have helped define them over the years for one reason or another. Easily, the one that most people know is Todd Howard. He’s the guy who honestly makes the biggest announcements for the company and helps crank out their best games.
Recently, Bethesda got a big loss when Pete Hines was revealed to be leaving the studio after a LONG time, and that has put eyes on Todd Howard because he could be leaving next should certain things happen.
In an interview with MinnMax, former Skyrim designer Bruce Nesmith talked about the role of Howard and how big of a loss it would be to Bethesda if he also left the company. He said quite bluntly:
“That would leave a big hole, that would leave a vacuum that no one person would probably be able to fill. We’ve always maintained, those of us who work there, that Todd had an attribute that none of the rest of us did. He was always able to put himself into the seat of your everyday player, to a far better extent than the rest of the design team or the rest of the development team.”
He didn’t stop there, though:
“When you work on a big team like that, or probably anywhere in game development, and particularly if you have a string of successes, it’s really easy to get ivory tower syndrome. It’s really easy to see the world through a very elitist viewpoint, everything’s got high philosophy design concerns, and you lose touch. For all of that, that should have affected Todd as well. It didn’t. He was always able to see it from Joe Average Player’s perspective, and that’s an invaluable insight.”
Not to mention, it’s clear that he’s a brilliant game designer, and he knows how to get projects done. Sure, the latest Bethesda IP hasn’t been the most “Universally Loved” title ever, and they all regret a certain announcement they made several years ago, but that’s not fully on Howard.
While it’s inevitable that he will leave the company eventually, many are likely hoping he won’t leave soon.
Fallout 76 landed with all the grace of an atom bomb. Back when it first released, PC Gamer's Christopher Livingston called it a «A beautifully crafted but ultimately repetitive world», giving it a 60 in his Fallout 76 review.
Back when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was in development, Bethesda threw a part when they were informed about the Xbox 360 specs, according to Todd Howard.
Todd Howard went up on a new video with Wired to talk about his career, game by game.
Todd Howard is feeling nostalgic, and in a new video he's outlining the history of his work at Bethesda and how it's informing the next era of the studio's RPGs, including Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6.
A former Bethesda veteran says that all decisions at the studio “run through” director Todd Howard.
The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, released way back in 1996, was the second installment in what went on to become Bethesda’s beloved, genre-defining RPG series, but it sounds like it was a particularly tricky one to get off the launchpad - and that if it hadn’t come together it could have meant the end of the studio itself.
Bruce Nesmith, a former Bethesda veteran who was lead designer on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, has said that he “probably played Skyrim for 1,000 hours" and that for "950 of those hours, it was broken”.
If Todd Howard up and left Bethesda, it would "leave a big hole," says Skyrim's lead designer, insisting that the Starfield director has "an attribute that none of the rest of us did."
Former Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith left Bethesda, and his updated role as senior systems designer, partway through Starfield's development, so he was as surprised as the rest of us when the massive space RPG was released in remarkably good condition.
Liked Starfield? Hated Starfield? You probably have Todd Howard to thank. A recent chat between MinnMax and Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith shed some light on Bethesda's structure and organisation, and it sure sounds like pretty much every choice the company makes needs Howard's stamp of approval before it can go ahead, even as it's grown bigger over the years. To be fair to Howard, though, it seems like that's in spite of his own wishes.
At this point, it’s safe to say that people are ready for The Elder Scrolls 6. While we’re likely still years away from playing it, it feels as though Bethesda will start putting more stock into the Skyrim follow-up now that Starfield is out.
While Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield will still receive support, the studio is pivoting towards its next highly-anticipated title, The Elder Scrolls 6. While it’s gone from pre-production to early development, there’s still a lot we don’t know, from the setting and the mechanics to when it releases. Even Microsoft is unsure about its exclusivity period, though it believes a release some five years down the line is possible.