IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Bethesda's Todd Howard on RPG Development, 3D, Not Supporting Nintendo and More

Posted July 29, 2010 by James Brightman

At the recent E3 Expo, IndustryGamers had the pleasure of sitting down to chat with Todd Howard, executive producer for Bethesda Game Studios.  Howard could not talk about his current internal Bethesda project(s), but it's always interesting to get insight from one of the top developers in the business. We got Howard's take on RPG development, the Western/Japanese RPG divide, why his studio doesn't make games for Nintendo platforms, the impact of 3D and motion gaming, the genius of id Software's John Carmack and more. Dig in...

IndustryGamers: First thing, I wanted to get your take and a more general Bethesda point of view on the 3D push from Sony, the motion sensing with Kinect and Move. What are some of your thoughts on the new technologies out there?

Todd Howard: If you’re a platform holder, that’s where you live: “Ok, we want to have cool hardware.” I was sitting there thinking as the Sony conference wrapped up, which I thought was really strong, “Wow, this is the first E3 in a very long time where I felt all three [had] a lot of cool new stuff.” From Kinect to the Move stuff, the 3DS... they all have a lot of cool new stuff, more so than just, “Here’s a big triple-A game, nice graphics.” There seems to be a lot of, “This is a new kind of game,” more so than I can ever remember, honestly.

IG: Does Bethesda have interest in utilizing 3D gaming, or motion controls? You guys have a lot of awesome games, but so far it doesn’t seem you’ve really made any announcements that incorporate any of those new technologies.

TH: No, I sort of take a wait-and-see approach on that. We do a bunch of games, so “X” developer might decide, “Hey we can take advantage of Kinect this way.” I think it really depends on the game.

IG: From the Nintendo perspective, you guys have not really done anything with the Wii. I remember asking you guys over a year ago, “Will you ever support the Wii?” Here we are a year later and there’s the Wii and of course the 3DS, which looks pretty cool. Is there any thinking at all from Bethesda’s viewpoint about finally diving into Nintendo development?

TH: From my group, which is the internal Bethesda development team, probably not. The stuff we’re doing is a better fit on the other platforms. You can never say never, but I think for the kind of games that we like to play and make, it fits the other platforms.

IG: It’s more of a mismatch of the audiences? The Wii has gotten, in my opinion, a little pigeon-holed in the casual gaming sector, and of course it doesn’t have the horsepower for those kinds of game that you guys make…

TH: I agree with what you said. Even if there’s going to be some bigger, more mature games on it, the system, for better or worse, has been moved to this demographic. If we had an idea that we thought would really take advantage of that platform, we would do something for it. Usually, we’re thinking more in terms of graphically doing things that the other systems do. That’s what we get excited about.

IG: Can you tell me about what you're working on now at Bethesda?

TH: Well, we're publishing The Hunted. It’s being developed by inXile, which is run by Brian Fargo. That’s in our external group, so I unfortunately don’t know too much about it other than what you’re seeing here, but it’s a cool looking game. Then, Brink is Splash Damage, and then Fallout: New Vegas is Obsidian. Unfortunately, this is one of those odd E3s where I can’t talk about what I’m doing and my group’s doing. We’ve spent a lot of time on new technology and re-doing a lot of the engine stuff that we’ve been using.

IG: That leads me into one of my next questions. I was so absorbed into Oblivion; I appreciate the work you put into that because I personally put in like 130 hours of gameplay.

TH: That’s good to hear.

IG: So when are we going to hear about another Elder Scrolls game?

TH: I wish I could give you an answer to that right now, but I honestly can’t. It’s a franchise that we love and it’s very close to our hearts. It’s a game that I can still play today, Oblivion, and have fun. One day, we hope there’s another one too.

IG: The hypothetical one that will hopefully, probably, be coming... can you talk a little bit in retrospect, looking at Oblivion, at some of the things that maybe you’d like to address in that game for the next one if there is a next one? Or maybe things that got cut out of that game that you wanted to include?

TH: You always have a million of them. I think one of the challenges… see now you’re making me think back to Oblivion. One of the big things in my memory that flavored that game was the move to the 360 and the new hardware. It was all so new and there was a lot of gameplay changes along with that. How are people going to experience this kind of game? There were a lot of technical hurdles, and we’ve gotten a bit better at managing that. I don’t know how that would translate to a future Elder Scrolls. With anything we’re doing, whether it’s Oblivion or Fallout 3, we like to start fresh as much as possible; I know I’m going off in the weeds on this answer. You spend a lot of time trying to design a game, but then also deal with all new technology. We’re trying to, going forward, find a better balance between those two, so that we’re not just satisfied with something working.

IG: In terms of the RPG genre, you guys do a fantastic job and a lot of the western developers are leading that charge now; maybe Japan is a little weaker in that area. Final Fantasy XIII is selling pretty well, but it seems whether it’s you or BioWare, or Peter Molyneux with the Fable series, there’s just a really strong western RPG presence. Do have any thoughts on the state of the Japanese RPGs? Do you play them personally?

TH: I don’t. I look at them. Artistically, I think they’re really, really good. I’ve never been one to draw lines, though I think it’s easier in this case to say, “these are the western and these are the eastern ones.” I think, by and large, if you look at Japanese games, overall their mindset is way more fantastical, even if it’s not an RPG. Personally for me, sometimes I like that and sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my hands around it. A western game… again I’m generalizing, they’re more realistic. Even if it’s post-apocalyptic America Fallout, there’s this filter on it: well, this could really be happening. It’s got this somewhat of a suspension of disbelief, even when we do fantasy stuff. If you compare the sci-fi in Mass Effect to the science fiction in a million Japanese games, it just gets really, really out there. I think the two sensibilities break down more like that.

IG: Do you have conversations where you might influence some of your western colleagues or vice versa with Ray Muzyka or Greg Zeschuck or Peter Molyneux?

TH: I actually have been fortunate enough to talk to all three of them quite a bit – all really, really great guys. And I think what’s interesting about that group and I’d put us into it, is they’re less concerned with “this is what RPG means” and more with “how do we create the best game?” There are things that really drive players to express themselves in the game or have a lot of fun, and RPGs, at the end of the day, can give you an opportunity to do that more than a lot of genres. It’s a genre that’s not really a defined type of interaction like a strategy game is or an action game is. [In a] RPG, you play a role. Red Dead Redemption is a great RPG. Did it check off the box for create your own character, which would be one of our own checkboxes? I think all of us think very eclectically, look at a lot of games, and “what’s going to give you the best game?”

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.