Category Archives: Todd Howard

OXM Interview with Todd and Istvan on Xbox Live today

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When the folks from Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) came to our office to cover Fallout 3 for their April cover story, they also shot some footage with Executive Producer Todd Howard, as well as Lead Artist, Istvan Pely. Originally, these interviews were planned to be included on the disc that comes with OXM. Instead, they were able to work something out with the guys over at Microsoft to put it up on Xbox Live.

So today, if you’re logged into Live, head to the Xbox Live blade, then select Inside Xbox to watch the footage. There’s some interesting stuff — plus it gives you a chance to see some of the OXM screenshots in HD.

Todd discusses PlayStation 3 development

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Today I received the April 2008 issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine and noticed that Todd wrote up this month’s POV (that’s Point of View) about developing games for the PS3. If you’re a PS3 owner, you might find what he has to say encouraging. Within the column, he discusses some of the advantages of the PS3 hardware, as well as how new tools have improved the development process for Fallout 3. Here’s a snippet:

“you can use the Blu-ray’s massive storage capacity to place multiple instances of your game’s assets on the disk. Having multiple copies on the disc greatly reduces seek times off the drive, and your load times shrink even more. Small things like this can make a huge difference over the course of a game. That kind of learning has helped us move from Oblivion to Fallout 3.”

To find out more on Todd’s thoughts about developing games on PS3, be on the lookout for the April issue.

Around the Web: Podcasts and Opinions

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Here’s a few interesting reads I thought I’d share that I’ve come across in the past few days.

The latest 1Up Yours podcast brings up Fallout 3, as well as practically every Elder Scrolls game ever made during their community segment of the show. During the segment, which starts about 53 minutes into the show, the 1Up crew uses these games as examples in a few of their debates. Fallout 3 and Oblivion are brought up several times in a discussion about the “no name characters” and the choices your characters make in games. Later on in the segment, they also bring up the Elder Scrolls and Fallout in a discussion of how Japanese RPGs compare with western-developed RPGs like Oblivion. To download the podcast, head over to 1Up’s podcast site.

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Todd Howard on OXM Podcast

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Todd Howard is featured in this week’s OXM Podcast. In the podcast, Todd chats with our friends, Ryan McCaffery – he wrote the review of Oblivion for OXM – and Dan Amrich – he wrote the awesome Fallout 3 cover story in the latest OXM. Fun podcast to listen to – if you want to cut to the chase, skip to 35:00 minutes in.

Lots of great new details about the game so don’t miss this.

Todd talks D&D on Level Up

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Two weeks ago, the gaming world lost one of its most influential creators in Gary Gygax — one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons. Over on Newsweek’s gaming blog, Level Up, N’Gai Croal has interviewed several folks from the videogame industry to hear how D&D impacted their lives — both personally and professionally. Today, Todd Howard’s interview with N’Gai went up. Here’s a sample:

Q: What do you remember about your first experience with Dungeons & Dragons?

A: My earliest memory was going with my brother to a game store called Conflicts and my parents dropping us off on a Tuesday night to play this “D&D” game. The next three hours were a revelation. It was like a new gateway into awesomeness was opened for me. This was the summer of 1978, if I remember right, and I was eight. I can recall counting the days until each Tuesday. It’s one of my favorite memories, of real bonding time with my brother and others.

You can read the rest of N’Gai’s interview with Todd here. Additionally, you can read interviews with Denis Dyack (Too Human), Harvey Smith (Deus Ex), and John Smedley (EverQuest).

Gamepro.com interviews Todd

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Last night on Gamepro’s website, a new interview went up with Fallout 3 Executive Producer Todd Howard. It’s a short interview, but provides some new insight on the game. Here’s a sample:

GamePro: What’s one particular detail of the game that Bethesda is particularly proud of?

Howard: Right now we’ve got a lot of the world built and we’re excited by how fun it is to explore. I admit we were worried about such a grand world that is completely destroyed and it feeling morbidly depressing and empty. We have a ways to go yet, but it’s looking good and there’s a lot of sandbox gameplay to discover.

Head over to GamePro’s site to check out the rest of the interview.

Around the Web — Monsoon Edition

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As we head out for the really, really rainy weekend, I thought I’d share some news coverage from the week.

This afternoon we received some exciting news that Shivering Isles won RPG of the Year over at Gameindustry.com. Pretty cool for a couple reasons. First, in the site’s ten years of doing annual awards, Shivering Isles is the first expansion to win this category. Even better is the fact that the voting came from Gameindustry.com readers. We’re truly honored that our fans came out in large numbers to vote, particularly since it was up against some really great games. Many thanks!

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Todd talks Fallout 3

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A new interview with our very own Todd Howard has gone up at videogaming247. Among other things, Todd discusses Fallout 3′s cross-platform launch, how decisions you make will help determine the game’s ending, and how Cormac McCarthy’s book, “The Road,” has been an influence on the game’s development. Here’s a sample of what he had to say:

Q: The “post-disaster” genre isn’t particularly well visited in games, certainly not as well as in movies and books. Do you look outside games for inspiration? We’re thinking along the lines of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”, and so on.

A: You picked one of the big ones, yes. “The Road” is fantastic and came out in the middle of our design phase, so it became required reading for many of us. We looked at many post nuclear movies, some very disturbing, things that deal with Hiroshima and such, and it gave us a good look at that type of nuclear destruction. Other general ones we looked at were things dealing with survival or how people deal with the effects of any war or rebuilding.

To read the rest of the interview, click here.

Bethblog Bowl I: Giants power past undefeated Patriots

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With the Super Bowl XLII just days away, we decided that playing out this year’s Super Bowl in our theater with Madden 2008 would be a good way to waste some time. For the game’s match up between the Patriots and the Giants, I asked senior producer Craig Lafferty if we’d be willing to take on EA football genius, Todd Howard. He reluctantly accepted, fearing that it would turn out to be a humiliating loss.

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For you iPhone addicts…

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…yeah you, the one that caresses your fancy Apple gadget as if it’s the cure for all the world’s problems, we’ve got another reason for you to keep your head rubbernecked in the direction of your beloved iPhone. Last week, Ash, a member of your obsessive tribe, put together something to feed your never-ending addiction to the iPhone.

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