Todd Howard, head of Bethesda Game Studios and widely considered as the brain behind the modern Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises, has just been on the Lex Fridman podcast. It is nearly 3 hours long, so is roughly 3x the length of any interview he has ever given. Naturally, there is a lot to unpack from this and Todd has offered updates on Starfield, Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Indianna Jones! Link for the full podcast can be found at the bottom of the page. It was a great listen, so I highly recommend doing so.
Source: Bethesda
Todd Talks Starfield
Like all Bethesda games, tone is important and is different across all games, which is why for example Elder Scrolls 2 is different from 3, which is different from 4 etc. For Starfield it is the same. And Todd told us that Starfield is “deeply human” in tone and the game is very human focused. Part of what is meant by this is when compared to robots. Robots are “very much utility” or combat based and not AI focused. No humanoid androids I’m afraid everyone. They are also referring to the relationships with companions, romantic or otherwise. It definitely sounds like some inspiration has been taken from The Outer Worlds and Mass Effect here. The relationships with your companions and with others can become deep and complex, at least more so than ever before. This will tie in well with the overhauled speech system. Characters can be romanced but then can also react to your behaviour positively or negatively on a temporary basis.
The other key takeaways with regards to Starfield are, much of the 1000 planets in Starfield will be empty, as they are in space, but the player will be directed to the handcrafted content “you expect” from Bethesda games, if they choose. Systems will be levelled – some might be a higher level, some lower – as a way to guide the player through the game. Of the 100 systems, a small portion will be hand crafted with NPCs etc. The empty planets will be resource rich, and therefor useful for the base building and resource harvesting elements. All planets will have real solar orbits and a day/night cycle for that tone and ‘atmosphere’, excuse the pun. And lastly, Starfield, feeding into the tone, has ‘close to real world’ physics… On that note we got a snippet of information about the landing and launching of spaceships in Starfield. True to life, it’s VERY loud. If you are on one of the planets walking around, picking up a quest or two, you may randomly hear the very loud noise of a spaceship taking off or landing as described by Todd Howard.
My theory looks more likely Todd having visited SpaceX AND it seems like the sort of thing Elon would ask for
The Elder Scrolls 6 QUESTions
Having been 11 years now since we last got a mainline Elder Scrolls game, naturally The Elder Scrolls 6 came up. As indicated by the document exchange between the UK CMA, Microsoft and Sony, Todd has ‘an idea’ of when they will be releasing the next Elder Scrolls, and it is widely believed to be targeting 2025/6 as its release window. More on that later though. We were given a clue as to the tone of Elder Scrolls 6 and, from a development point of view, where they are with it.
Todd confirms that the music for Elder Scrolls 6 has been done. He also said that the music in the 2018 trailer for Elder Scrolls 6 is a less refined version of where they are with it now, then going on to say they are done with the music… What would be interesting, is to sit down with this, soundtrack closing your eyes and comparing the feelings from the music of the other Elder Scrolls soundtracks. To get the best results it would be someone who has never played and Elder Scrolls game to avoid biases.
How we are able to tie this in to where Bethesda are in the development process with Elder Scrolls comes from what Todd Howard later said about their video game development process which is:
- Lunchtime discussions – mainly around tone and the big-ticket feature to make the game unique.
- Concept Art.
- Figuring out and planning how the game starts.
- Music.
- Combat and dialogue to create a first playable prototype. (This being the minimum of where they are now).
- Creating a vertical slice (VS). Which is a larger version of the playable prototype. (Probably here).
- Rest of the team joins the full development. (Not here yet).
- “Glue” fixing the flow of the game, chopping and changing where things go to make sure it runs effectively, quests don’t cancel each other out etc.
- Skill trees
So, based on what we know about the Starfield release window and Todd Howard telling us they are done with the music we can deduce that they are somewhere around the VS stage of development. 2026/7 could well be a more realistic target for Elder Scrolls 6, I’m afraid.
A couple of other snippets I will provide in bullet points…
- Classes will not be making a comeback (but hopefully traits and backgrounds will help subsidise for the hardcore rpg fans out there.
- Bethesda Game Studios have a “clutter group”. Which Todd Howard describes as “an art”. This is basically a team who decorates areas and buildings with the level of interactable detail that Bethesda Game Studios have in their games, I can understand why it is described as an art.
Fallout
Not as much was talked about with Fallout, but Todd did give us some details on the upcoming TV show. It is being Executive Produced by the same director as West World, Jonah Nolan. It is going to be true to lore, based in a different location and not trying to follow the existing games. Obviously though, it will be different for Television it will be more character focused.
Indianna Jones
May be closer than we think. When Todd spoke of this, he used language that suggested this game was in a relatively complete state. He also told us what kind of game it will be a cross between open world and an action-adventure game. Sounding to me like it will be more God of War/Tomb Raider like in design. More open areas but a linear game. Could we see something at The Game Awards…? That is probably hoping for too much.
Lastly… Bethesda Game Studios have an unannounced game!!
But it is a mobile game. It is likely a Fallout Shelter-like companion to Starfield but only time will tell.
Check out the full podcast here:
