Bethesda Softworks - Todd Howard Interview

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Todd Howard has been interviewed by Gamestar. A translation was provided on Reddit by DRocMusic.

Q: Based on your new experience with multiplayer games, would multiplayer be something for Elder Scrolls 6 or Fallout 5?

A: For those games we want to keep them as single player games. That is what our focus is going to be. If they have some social aspect we haven't designed yet, we'll see. But we treat them each as their own thing.

Q: There are 3 studios working on Fallout 76. How do you keep them connected and working together in a way that Bethesda Games Studios keeps it's own identity?

A: It's tricky. You are right, there are 3 studios. And then there are other developers under Zenimax and id software helping us out. To answer your question: The studio in Montreal has been around a long time. Since Fallout 4.

The studio in Austin, the old Battlecry Studio, started working with us right when we finished Fallout 4. So we've been working with them for three years now. We had some issues in the beginning in how we handle communication and I'll admit it was hard at first, but now we are in a good place. Everybody has worked together for a while. The way we communicate, each studio is still slightly different, each have their own vibe but everyone is pushing in the same direction.

[...]

Q: You've been using more or less the same engine for years. What about Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6?

A: I think a lot of people, who are not making games dont understand what the word "engine" stands for.

They think the engine is this one thing, we view it as technology. There's a lot of different pieces and for every game, parts of that change. For example the renderer, the AI, the animations, the script language and so on.

Some people talk about Gamebryo but we haven't used that in a decade. A lot of our engine contains a lot of middleware like Havoc. For Fallout 76 we have changed a lot. The game uses a new renderer, a new lighting system and a new system for the landscape generation. For Starfield even more of it changes. And for Elder Scrolls 6, out there on the horizon even more.

We like our editor. It allows us to create worlds really fast and the modders know it really well. There are some elementary ways we create our games and that will continue because that lets us be efficient and we think it works best.
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More information.
 
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Good interview! Appreciate the details on anti-griefing measures. It sounds good in theory, so I hope they can pull it off.
 
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Q: Based on your new experience with multiplayer games, would multiplayer be something for Elder Scrolls 6 or Fallout 5?

A: For those games we want to keep them as single player games.
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Good news. I'm glad they're not trying to blend them with multiplayer.
 
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Ephiron said:
Good interview! Appreciate the details on anti-griefing measures. It sounds good in theory, so I hope they can pull it off.
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At the same time it is a bit strange to have anti-grief rules for the players while the whole population in a Fallout world is actively pursuing careers of smugglers, looters, murderers, rapers, sadists, serial killers, slavers, cannibal, thieves, World conquerors, World destroyers.
Some being so hard-workers than they have several of those jobs at the same time.
 
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Abandon that hope. Those two games have a story.
 
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Big news from the horse's mouth in this interview, at least for me: ES6 will be single player (possibly with some crappy MP that isn't the focus tacked on) and Gamebryo (with its modifications that Howard would like to believe confers the engine with a new, less-maligned name) isn't going anywhere.

Now, if we could just lose the Creation Club and its forced downloads and paid mods...
 
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Privateer.... One of my favorites :)

Not sure what to expect from Starfield. Sci-fi Skyrim with space travel would be the obvious choice - but the "tone" of the trailer smells a little bit of 2001 or Interstellar.

Not really my preference, but we'll see.
 
"We like our editor. It allows us to create worlds really fast and the modders know it really well."

One reason I think using similar tools has a silver lining. It makes it much easier for modders to use .. as well as the developers. As long as they keep enhancing it I don't see the problem. FO4 is a gorgeous game overall and made more so with some nice mods and a decent ReShade/ENB preset.

Good interview overall. Still not excited over FO76 though. I like my SRPG games.

Real life has more than enough griefing in it - I don't want it my games as well.
 
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wolfgrimdark said:
"We like our editor. It allows us to create worlds really fast and the modders know it really well."

One reason I think using similar tools has a silver lining. It makes it much easier for modders to use .. as well as the developers.
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I'm OK with keeping Gamebryo, too. Another point in favor is if you think Bethesda games are buggy now, wait until you see a huge open world, like the one we'll surely get in ES6, in a new game engine. Every game I've played a game with a new engine, it's buggy as hell at the outset. THey usually don't iron out the wrinkles completely until the sequel.
 
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99% of the games we play use engines that are based on very, very old technology.

People tend to confuse the foundation or legacy code with the actual game.
 
I don't care what they want to call it. It works well enough for me and has the advantage of familiarity for the devs and modders.
 
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Darth Tagnan said:
99% of the games we play use engines that are based on very, very old technology.

People tend to confuse the foundation or legacy code with the actual game.
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Bingo but try convincing other gamer's of that.:)
First let me preface this, Fallout 3 and New Vegas were built on the Gamebryo engine, not the Creation Engine. The Gamebryo Engine was licensed for Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and New Vegas. Bethesda decided to build their own engine and forked Gamebryo into the Creation Engine, its there own in house built engine. they did this because the graphic capabilities of Gamebryo were not advancing fast enough for their development of Skyrim.
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Anyway if and a big if Bethesda made a new game engine it might not be as mod friendly as the creation engine. Not saying it can't be done but easier using the modified engine.

Also I'll share this link again that analyzes the creation engine.

Link - http://peter.corrosivetruths.org/2011/12/21/is-skyrims-creation-just-gamebryo/
 
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Grump mode activated:

All I can say is that there needs to be a MASSIVE improvement on Fallout 4 if they want to keep refreshing gamebryo for 20 years. F4 looked old and dated in comparison to almost any recent title. Even some indie games can beat the look of Fallout.

Also, why is the asshat talking about keeping things the same for the mod scene? The creation club will kill free mods, so you might as well toss gamebryo and make something that only real coders can manipulate.
 
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