Bethesda's Todd Howard on the State of the Industry

I think the game industry has done a lot of things over in this cycle um particularly in the last few years that um are really really amazing that inspire you to to go further and um particularly a lot of games like heavy rain how they how they portray their characters how how well done that is um on a storytelling level um I think that's still the trickiest thing to do in games is to get good character on the screen emoting um I love the Rockstar stuff uh you know Grand Theft Auto Red Dead Redemption um I think they handle that making it fun to play while being Grand uh really really well um you know portal was a game I played that uh when I finished I put down the controller and applauded over the credits while the song is going I think it's really really inspired um to kind of game where you think wish I had done that that is that is awesome but even in the sports front I play a lot of sports games and I I think people don't appreciate how hard it is to emulate something everybody knows really really well um you everybody knows how football works and and there it is in the screen I sort of joke in the office that it it is one of the best role playing games NCA football it's like I I I got 50 characters all with 30 stats that are leveling up all the time uh you know building your own team I think I think as far as role playing and there's a there's a number of Studios that are still pushing on it um and and what it means to be a role playing game and the kind of things that you get to do in them um one of the things with role playing is it it's one of these genres that doesn't Define Itself by a type of interaction you can do anything there is no feature that you can think of that you can't put in a role playing game you could you know you could have a racing game break outout in a role playing game you could have a football game start in a role you know there is nothing uh that you leave off the table when you start a role playing game so I actually think sort of the future of role playing games and I'm seeing it now with things are that role playing is creeping into all the other genres you know um Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer you know at its base level and picking perks and getting experience points the one of the nuts of a role playing game is you know building up your character and defining yourself and being rewarded for that that's a big nut of their multiplayer or Red Dead Redemption and collecting items and going out and exploring and picking up quests and um you know that's Red Dead Redemption is a really good role playing game yet doesn't check off the box for I made my character um so I I see it more where it's going it's creeping into lots of stuff I hav't asked about the difference between the the Western RPGs and the Eastern Japanese ones and the Western ones getting more popular and I don't I honestly don't have an answer to that because um I've always been in a western RPGs and that's what we make um I uh I've never been that into the Japanese RPGs because I want to roam and do what I want and traditionally they they don't let you do that this will be a gross generalization of it but I find in Japanese art and and Science Fiction and Fantasy that it's it's super fantastical and in Western stuff it tries to get more realistic as much as it can for what it is so like the Western you know myself will approach it kind of or this is fantasy and has elves and swords and dragons and but it has to feel real you know has to feel like it's it's this could happen or did happen or even Mass Effect the way it approaches science fiction when you see a Japanese one it's crazy on another level of like well that's just that looks cool but that's nuts you know it's really high fantasy it's really crazy science fiction and then the Earth like eats itself and then why are there nukes and I have trouble with my father and mother like they all just think yeah I don't know that's not I don't get into that stuff as much I think because I can't wrap my hands around it so it doesn't uh it doesn't suspend my disbelief in the way like even though it's a storical like Red Dead immediately like this is all real you know I'm I'm here I'm doing this and uh this is these are real places in the west even though they're made up for the pure role playing game uh I think the one thing that that people are still pushing on uh including us is how the other characters act how they respond to you doing something uh there's still a lot of ground to be covered in that where you know I can think of a list a mile long of you know it could do this it could do this it could do this it could do this whereas I think when it comes to the environments you're walking through they're pretty good you know they'll look better each time but there isn't like this you know environmental thing that we just can't do yet you know I don't I don't feel a need like okay when's the next when's the next Hardware cycle I don't think that's going to push us anywhere that is really new yet as far as all the new tech that's out whether it's move connect the 3D stuff um I have looked at most of it um I'm still kind of waiting I'm I like gadgets so I like them on a gadget level I'm personally not a fan of 3D I think it kind of muddies the picture I don't like to wear the glasses I mean movies Avatar anything I'm not just you know game or X system I just am not it doesn't do a lot for me I have played a bunch with the connect as a gadget piece of technology I think it's it's awesome we do have a a Dev system here and when you look into the data it's collecting and what it's doing it is really really amazing um and I think you're seeing that with some of the hacks a lot of people have done I think the games uh I I appreciate what they've done so far those are the games I think you need to do at launch to show plugging the holes in the water in the Adventures game a game you cannot do on the Wii I think they definitely went out and said we need experiences that you cannot do with anything else but I think It suffers from you know Joy Ride is not a good way to play a racing game for me my kids love it um but I you know it's not as good as having a controller so I think eventually they'll come into some software that really does the hardware Justice um because right now I don't I don't think they they have one that there's going to be some breakthrough stuff coming I'm I'm sure of it we've we have looked into using the other platforms doing an iPhone thing using social media for our games um you know I'm not I find very few of those games are things that I really enjoy um I like game experiences on my iPhone that would not be better anywhere else so I don't like to play racing games on my iPhone because I have a I have Forza that's not going to be better than that ever so I don't know that we I don't think we would ever do a game experience like Skyrim on one of those devices because to me it would never be as good as the main one uh that being said we are looking at ways to sort of there are ways to extend it and do things on those devices that would be no better anywhere else than that that's that's sort of how I how I look at it so nothing to sort of declare we're doing this right now but there are things that we're thinking about

Channel: Game Informer

Views: 86,520

Keywords: 745308011001, elder scrolls, Bethesda, youtube, Todd Howard, Skyrim, fallout, fallout 4, bethesda game studios

Id: 4QUtu8rLzK4

Length: 7min 54sec (474 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 29 2011