Bethesda and video game legend Todd Howard is an incredibly busy guy right now working on projects like the first Starfield expansion, the Fallout television series, the long-awaited Elder Scrolls 6, and the upcoming Indiana Jones video game. So how does he manage to balance it all when he's spread across so many different IP?
In the same interview with YouTube channel 'MrMattyPlays', Todd spoke briefly about this and where he gets his motivation from. Put simply - he doesn't have any hobbies (gaming is pretty much it), he loves doing what he does and he's got a lot of "amazing people" who do a lot of the heavy lifting. Here's what he had to say:
"I think the main thing for everybody to remember is, I have a whole studio of amazing people I get to work with, by no means is it just me. So many people I've worked with over really decades and a lot of new people...I do get to do a lot of stuff but it's all great...I do have some things I've gotten better at and I would say delegating, as well as how to use my days and sort of which hours I block off for meetings, but you look at what we're doing, I love it all. I don't have any hobbies, I love video games, I love our games, I love our fans, so it's kind of non-stop."
In saying this, Todd is still able to slot in time for regular gaming sessions and yes - he's been playing a few of Bethesda's new games and DLC including the Shattered Space expansion for Starfield (as well as its many updates) and also Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Beyond this, he's been hitting up Diablo 4, the Forza series, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. He's also incredibly "excited" for EA Sports' new College Football game.
So to sum it up, Todd is busy, but fortunately he does have amazing talent to support him and still finds time to game.
Are you surprised Todd is still so involved in just about every Bethesda project? What are your thoughts about this for the studio moving forward? Let us know in the comments.
[source youtu.be]
Comments 11
Hopefully he learned a thing or two playing Cyberpunk 2077
Its probably quite easy for Todd. Its not as if he has to sit down and 'build' these games simultaneously from scratch. He could go to Machinegames, Bethesda or whatever other Studio/Team are working on Projects and give them Direction for the week/month ahead after assessing how that team are progressing since the last time he gave them 'direction' and be on 'call' should any problems arise.
No doubt if a team is 'unsure of whether they should/could do something, they'd run it by Todd, maybe even provide a 'demo/sample' for Todd to check but its not as if Todd himself is sat at a desk 'developing' these games simultaneously. He has developers building the game and he is the one ultimately to decide what those devs 'do', what they'll be creating and how Todd wants it to look, play, feel etc but Todd can check in once a week or so to check progress...
Todd “It just works/you need to upgrade your PCs” Howard.
@WhiteRabbit No joke, Oblivion is the only time I've bought a GPU just to play one game so it runs well lol.
@NEStalgia not gonna lie, that makes it sound like an expensive game.
That being said, I hope it was a worthy investment for you!
@WhiteRabbit To be fair, back then a new upper-mid-tier GPU was like $300-350 vs like $1100 today lol. Sure seemed expensive though....those were the days.
But yeah totally worth it, still remains my favorite Bethesda game and one of my all time favorites. Skryim, to me, is a downgrade from Morrowind and especially Oblivion.
@BAMozzy
Yeah, There is that really great documentary about the making of Star Wars Jedi (the first one) that shows you are definitely correct regarding the role/action of Game Directors. If you haven't watched it already, I recommend checking it out, I think for free on YouTube. Best
@WhiteRabbit
Lol, yeah, the latest Starfield Creations on Console have been an absolute joke for me, crashing my Series S plays of Starfield within 30 mins everytime. Wasted too much potential fun play time mucking with the stupid "activate/deactivate tick button" and "load order" for Creations, so decided to dump the broken concept and go back to Vanilla Starfield.
I’m not surprised. What surprises me is that they never found more talented studios to make more half sequels, after obsidian and new Vegas did so well. There was plenty of room for an elder scrolls 5.5 and fallout 4.5, but they just relied on MMOs.
@mac_da_man hopefully cd projekt learned a thing or two with the absolute disaster cyberpunk was for years. That was a lot of free beta testing the public did
@jesse_dylan yeah it wasnt a pretty launch for Cyberpunk. But neither are Bethesdas RPG games it the best shape at release.
But what I really hope Bethesda improves are the stories, worldbuilding, feeling etc compared to say Starfield or Fallout.
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