Starfield Interview: Todd Howard on Fulfilling His Vision, Xbox Performance, and More!

hey everybody Ryan McCaffrey with IGN I am joined by my good game development friend Todd Howard good to see you again it is good to see you uh we chatted a year ago remotely when you shared some Starfield details with me there uh things that are a little different now because the game is imminent I played it for about an hour we just watched we're recording this the day before but everybody will have just seen the 45-minute Starfield direct there's a lot to get to Todd there's a lot going on with this so I want to just kind of start at the top and we'll kind of work our way uh down into more nitty-gritty details uh this is the first new IP you've done in a couple of decades now it's been a little while so totally new thing it's the biggest exclusive for Microsoft in a long time uh and it's certainly the biggest thing Microsoft's put out since they acquired Bethesda so pressure do you see in all seriousness like do you kind of feel any extra pressure compared to any of the other games you've made or are you just kind of you kind of focus on what you do I'm just sort of curious if if the stuff that like we talk about in The Gaming Community is something that goes through your head or gets talked about in the office at all well clearly you know I'm aware of that you know everything you said um and compared to our previous games there's always a lot of attention on what we do we're very fortunate and but for us it's we have put so much into this game and it is as you said you know our first new IP in over 25 years it's our first major release in about eight years so for us we have just put so much into it um that we're just doing everything we can to make the best game that we can hope that everybody loves it so um we feel we're on we're on the right track um and we're we're really fortunate I think with some of those things you said to get the attention yeah um and that there are we know there's a lot of people out there looking forward to it and we just view our jobs you know hey just do the best job we can do put everything we can into the game and I hope everyone loves it ready to lift off when you are captain engines ready Frontier is fueled and ready Captain so I think the last time we talked or maybe the time before I I gave you a little grief for you you babe Ruthie and you called your shot with 11 11 22 really far in advance uh and I think I think we were having a little fun about that before the delay so I mean it's good you we want a better game we don't want you know you just make the date just for the sake of making the date so just just out of curiosity like how has the extra time been spent specifically with Starfield well look it's just such a big game and as you do these things you know you look you do your best as it comes to release dates and projections but given the scale of it if one thing is off that by a percentage that can that can escalate quickly to to more time and we've really spent it most of this year playing the game a ton over and over and making sure that you know it's balanced it's as fun as possible honing systems and interface obviously bug fixing and all those things performance and really getting it where we're really really sure and solid on what we're putting out there for everybody well speaking of performance Xbox Gamers went through a little a little unpleasant surprise with the last big Bethesda exclusive not too long ago with red fall and you know that maybe not performing on console on the series X kind of how we'd hoped so just I think really all we're looking for is not necessarily everything's got to be 4K 60 or 120 frames but just kind of nobody likes surprises you know when it comes to the game that they're going to buy how it performs how it feels now your games have always been these just boundary pushing envelope pushing huge open detailed worlds they've been 30 frames per second on Console traditionally so just I'm gonna turn it over for you just say for a second here just just lay out just so that nobody's surprise comes September 6th what are we looking at on if I'm gonna play this on a series X or even if you want to mention Series S as well like what's what's the experience going to be technically speaking Yeah I'm glad you asked you know it's I think it'll come as no surprise given our previous games what we go for always these huge open worlds fully Dynamic hyper detail where anything can happen and we do want to do that you know it's 4K and the X it's 1440 on the S we do lock it at 30. because we want that Fidelity we want all that stuff we don't want to sacrifice any of it fortunately in this one we've got it running great it's off and running way above that sometimes it's 60. but on the consoles we do lock it because we prefer the consistency yeah right where you're not even thinking about it and we're not we don't ever want to sacrifice that experience that makes our games you know really really special so feels great we're really happy with how it feels Even In the Heat of battle and we need that Headroom because you know in our games really anything can happen yeah speaking of tweaking and and optimizing there were some rumors going around that ID software was helping you guys out with the combat with tuning combat I'm just curious was there any truth to that at all there they did not help us with the comment first of all I'd say you know being in the company knowing the folks that did software for a long time I'm like a huge Doom fan I mean they know what they're doing I like why I ask they're the absolute best Uma turtle is one of my favorite games and so with Fallout 4 they did give us a few tips on how to handle a combat yeah but and Starfield you know we redid the combat um ourselves and it's really feeling great but it has helped us really more on the graph they've helped us in the graphics side oh nice so we get into like you know motion blur it's just how the game feels smooth some of the things that they do in iD Tech that we wanted to bring over into creation Engine 2 and they helped us do that and you know it's great awesome yeah it's a it's a nice nice neighbor to have down the street it is and I love it or ask for some some milk and sugar right and I'm such a fan of what they do so being able to get an early look at what they're doing next not here to talk about that that's just oh I mean feel free to talk about that [Laughter] um all right so I'm curious given you mentioned it's it's going to be just shy of eight years between shipping Fallout 4 and shipping star field which to my knowledge is the longest that you've ever gone between shipping games that you've directed that I've yes yeah well obviously we had 76 in between but it's something that I've directed yes yeah that is a lot so can you kind of I'm just curious about the what was your initial vision for Starfield and how that's either stayed true and borne out or evolved over the course of eight years that's a great question I will say this that the game sticks to the original Vision um that took longer than I wanted you know but I'd say about halfway through the project you realize this is why nobody tries to make this game so it's been a you know when you do these things you take some risks and you're really ambitious that can be a very windy path sometimes is how I'd say it but um it is true to the vision we had for our type of role-playing game set in space and where your mind kind of goes and we want to as much as possible say yes to the player like can I do this can I do this yes yes yes yes yes yes um and space is Big so the amount of content that we ended up making to have that really feel authentic to that um that that did grow and grow from where we originally started I mean so you know neither one of us is is getting younger we've we've both been doing our respective things for a while yeah so like are you okay with things taking eight years again on on in the future or not my plan I don't think you would ever ever plan for that um you know sometimes that's how it ends up so that you know that what you're putting on the screen is what you want um but you're right I'm not getting younger sort of start you know like how many games I probably have left in you yeah how many how many games are ahead of me yeah um versus behind me and so that does start to enter your head you know what I hate about these Pirates completely resistant to my otherwise irresistible charge would you point to any other games as inspiration for Star field along the way I mean not in a literal sense of oh I want to do what they did but in terms of of like giving you giving the player a feeling that like something that you know a game you played uh that you really wanted to convey like I mean when you first showed me this game a while back I mean that certainly was reminded of Elder Scrolls and Fallout to I mean there's the DNA is there but I the other I would say two non-bethesda games that I got little little vibes from were no man's sky and Mass Effect well clearly those other games that are science fiction I think you might look at and say okay this is science fiction it's like that I think the minute to minute obviously on the ground it has similarities to Elder Scrolls and Fallout and the things that we've made and how it feels in your hands or some some certain mechanics but believe it or not it's the games that that put you in a world that transport you to a play so I think it it probably also as a flow probably has more of a feeling of like a red dead too right like I'm living the Western fantasy yeah so in this you are you're living this science fiction Explorer fantasy and sometimes that's being on a Barren planet and nothing is going on or an Old West Town like we saw that in the in the direction right or expires and all that so for me it's games that where I feel I am rooted in the reality of this universe of the game and everything else kind of disappears uh there was like I mean as people have now seen there was a lot in the in the direct in the 45 minutes that were covered uh a big takeaway for me was uh that for everything we saw there was just sort of these hints of constellation and that seems to be who the the main story is going to revolve around but it separate from that or kind of I guess adjacent to that it seems like there's so much to do in this game that if are are we going to be are you going to be okay if players just don't end up really necessarily even paying much attention to the main story and just end up kind of doing their own thing out there or are you going to kind of are you taking kind of Greater pains to make sure that people want to stay and get through that main path before they get back out to the wild space Frontier it's a good question I view our job as giving people the menu yeah here are the things you can do and it is a very it's a very large game obviously there's a lot there's a lot to it um it's it's can be complicated at times and we have found though that the gaming audience particular are fans they want to they they want to have all those options and I do think more than than anything we've done I really believe this that the more you give to Starfield the more it gives back to you um and that was one of our goals and so um I I do hope people play the main quest and I hope people do this but most of all I want them ultimately to do whatever they want to do yeah I mean I know you don't want to give away a lot about about the main storyline certainly and people don't want to have that spoiled for them but what I would be curious of given again the scale and scope of this that the direct conveyed and that I barely scratched the surface of when I was playing a little while ago of these thousand planets of all this stuff you've got going on how much of of it will the main story lead you towards like you know what I mean like because you probably want to show as as much of the diversity and as much of the as many of the cool places that your team worked really hard on over the course of the campaign but you can't show everything you can't lead them up to it that's in different planets right we want to keep it sort of you know manageable that's what I would say in the main quest so we obviously hit some high points but not even you know it's still a small fraction like you're saying to what's in the game um and for us like a main quest we want it to sort of pay off there are people that that do want to come to a game do the main story and feel that okay I have one I can now do something else I think that's okay too um but we've also learned look we're sitting here it's 12 years after Skyrim we're looking at a game that has over 60 million copies and all these people playing they're still playing it um and so we have learned we need to build in from the beginning a game that has this long-term play thought of so um that you know hopefully you know people are playing Starfield a long time from now well you know on that note you guys have always done post-release content if you've had like major paid bigger expansions you've had smaller scale stuff I I can't imagine that you'd you'd even want to necessarily expand this game geographically moving forward because there's already a ton there so like I know and you're not here to just give away your your announce your post release plan but like conceptually how are you thinking about it given the that this is like a a giant Universe rather than just a continent like in like in cyrodiil in an Elder Scrolls game right it's a great question I mean look we're going to be doing um a lot of add-on content for Starfield we love doing it um our fans love it we will have announced sort of the first one that's gonna not we're gonna do a story expansion pack um that's gonna be coming we our plan is to do things of varying sizes um and we've done a lot of that in our previous games so it's something that that we really like doing our fans like so despite the size of the game there's still things we want to add as far as features in the future and stories and things like that so um we think this is going to gain hopefully it's going to continue for a long time that way [Music] at the end of the direct we heard from a bunch of folks on your team about their favorite uh their favorite moments that they've had while playing can you paint me a specific picture of a memorable moment for a character that you've rolled that you've been playing in recent months like some some just memorably cool scenario that's see just a few weeks ago I landed on one of the early planets in this Sandstorm blew through and I went to run away from it and this you know ships can randomly once whether they can randomly land like enemy ships can land some going through the sandstorm the ship land and I get this firefight and I bought I like got on the ship and while I'm shooting the guys on the surface of the planet the ship the ship took off in the space so now I'm in outer space on the ship and I was just like can that happen I guess that can happen yeah um one of my favorite moments from Oblivion which I've told you many times is my favorite game of yours I just that's that's the one that I have the most positive memories with um is was randomly finding a unicorn yes you can do that there so I are there like 50 of those kinds of things there's a good number where there's a lot in stuff that's not a quest that's not that's you'll just randomly happen upon this this memorable special I don't want to spoil what they are but yeah of course we love that stuff and um we have some really really special ones in this game that I think uh I'm very curious to see how long after the game is out you know the people discover it yeah now you mentioned Skyrim and uh you know tens and tens of millions of copies of that and the the sort of historic runaway train that that thing's been I mean you you probably can't count on that level of success again necessarily so what like what does success look like for you with this game that's a good question because with Game Pass we're obviously bringing in you know probably the biggest audience that that we've had for a launch um and so it just makes you really fortunate to know that you can take these kind of risks with a game like this and be ambitious but still know that it's going to get in a lot of people's hands so I mean I think for us it is that you know people say they love the game they I think all games go through a couple phases so they have this phase where the game isn't out yet what do people think of it and there's like what do they think of it the first week it comes out but then you got to think about what do they think after a year what do they think after year two and so um I hope that you know it it sort of stands the test of time like like our other games I don't focus on like the number of users yeah in that way but I guess you can't really design for a game that will stand the test of time right you just have to do do your best to open it and hope that it you do yourself that is very true you do the absolute best that you can do um again the whole team is just we have really poured ourselves in this one over a lot of years and uh you know you cross your fingers you do everything you can there are systems you can design that say Hey look this system is going to work over a long-term play hundreds of hours like a character system versus yeah after 30 you've burned through everything um that's certainly not the case here clearly not based on what I've seen so far a thousand planets number is the the big one that you've been throwing out what's like what's the ratio of of the like procedurally generated stuff to the handcrafted stuff well the planets themselves the Landscapes you know pretty much all procedural we kind of make these large like think like kilometer sized tiles we've generated and those get kind of wrapped around the planet um as far as handcrafted content more than any game we've done um I've I've stopped giving out numbers um but you know just in the dialogue it's more it's more than our last more than Skyrim and Fallout 4 combined just in dialogue right so as we get into locations and art and everything we've done more of it than we than we've ever done wow uh is it reasonable to suggest that if star field is as awesome as and successful as we all hope it is that as gamers is it reasonable to think that a star field 2 is 10 plus years away because I'm the reason I bring this up not to not to bring it back to like you know how much how much time do we all have left but you have always it's gonna get depressing no I hope not okay but you've always kept your team clearly on purpose as as one team Bethesda game studios your your team you know and you had been alternating between Elder Scrolls and then once you acquired it fall out and you've gone back and forth and now you've had this eight-year star field thing in here you've already committed to Elder Scrolls 6 is the next thing you said it's in pre-production and then last year when we talked you said yep Fallout five I want to do that that'll be next that was more of like a general it will clearly be after Elder Scrolls 6 at some point okay like let me clarify that one all right go ahead at some point in the future but so okay so but I think Elder Scrolls six is the next one yeah yeah but if so if if star Field's awesome and you want to do another one and the team wants to do another one and the company wants another one is it it sounds like it's probably going to be a while I don't have a great answer for you there um it's a astute observation I'm not trying to get to unveil the road map like I'm just because because again you've you've kept your team smaller you know you you've uh to date not like grown a second team within the studio unless unless you have and that's well we have what I would call you know a a full-size group team on 76 still right updating that game it's doing great very fortunate um but you're right in that we have gotten bigger we have four Studios we have the one in Rockville we have Montreal we have Austin we have doubt so we have gotten bigger to handle all this we work with a lot of Partners on stuff um but that doesn't speed things up necessarily right you need a certain size we're relatively small comparatively right um to do these things and I think if we look at Skyrim again not the plan to have an Elder Scrolls 6 this far after Skyrim but in today's day um people are playing these games for longer so our ability like we talked about to support star field whereas maybe in the old days you put it out and then you'd go on to a sequel now we can support that game for a much longer period of time which is what our plan is and then as we look to like an Elder Scrolls 6 that is one where like I probably shouldn't say this but if I do the math I am not getting any younger how long do people play in Elder Scrolls for that may be the last one I do I don't know the last Elder Scroll the last Elder Scroll yes yes I don't know I mean I I do the math as a as a gamer and it's like am I even going to be playing Elder Scrolls 6 on the series X or am I going to be playing that on the next thing because it's that's those big it's crazy how long these trip the games that you make they take a long time I wish they did I wanted to be faster but that speed isn't the goal right right or should it the goal is hey what's the product what's the vision how do we do this and how do we continue continue to support the ones that we currently have because we have millions of people playing Fallout 4 Millions playing 76 Skyrim so it's about well you know hopefully have that with Starfield [Music] you had told me last year that you you know you want to direct Fallout five like that you want that to be your game at some point down the road is but now with with the Microsoft Bethesda Xbox game studios family getting a lot bigger you know you you did work with obsidian years ago with New Vegas is could any of the games that that you and your team have created any of these three franchises would you you know make that would you want to work with any of them potentially on something in the future I mean there's always there's a I can't say never to to any of that you know for us it is what's going to get us the best product yeah um how do we stay focused I think there's a lot of times where you can get you can get unfocused and try to do too many things at once and then they don't end up necessarily the way you want and so if I look at other franchises or I look at entertainment in general I haven't noticed like the time gap between things being a negative right right they can be a negative when you think about it you make a calendar yeah look at Grand Theft Auto exactly it suffered or um you know the gaps between I think Half-Life 3 will do fine right so um so even though in the moment like how do I how do I bring that closer to reality today because I want to play it um those gaps these are still Evergreen franchises that I think when they come it's about just doing it right yeah well that's and that's what we as Gamers want to hear Too certainly um so Starfield we I played an hour it felt like three minutes there was and you were like hustling me along different save files like oh look at this go look at this what's the character you're playing now because you've got the you've got the traits you've got the background so like what's your what are you meaning right now well I try to do it all um right now I'm digging deep on spaceships so I mean you could say in some respects this is like five or six games in one right it's the spaceship game it's a on the ground game that's uh just a dialogue game that's an outpost game it's a crafty game it's it does all of these things um and so and and it always is tricky for us to get a good game Flow where you those things don't feel like they're separate games that they can weave in and out of them in a way that is holistically creates something you know greater than the sum of its parts what a view it's actualized star field for for players before they get the chance to play it themselves what's the feeling that you try to give people with Elder Scrolls what's the feeling that you try to give people with Fallout and what's the feeling that you try to give players with this I mean that's a that's a good question I would say if you think about you know Elder Scrolls with a fantasy world who would you want to be and what would you want to do we want to provide that yeah uh and then fall out the same thing in a post-apocalyptic environment how does that factor into the things you find and how does crafting is very unique in Fallout when it comes to that or what's the vibe of the people what are they sacrificing to stay alive or and I've and when you get to Starfield and science fiction same sort of thing where if you were to open it up and you could do anything how are we providing that experience and we love exploration so when you get into a game like this that's what people say why do you have a thousand planets because we'd rather give you the option to do that than say no yeah and so I think if people drift toward fantasy they're gonna love it you know they're going to stick with Elder Scrolls if they like post apocalypse if we go to Paul I like science fiction we hope that Starfield builds that kind of desire to play that kind of thing Todd Howard thank you so much thank you for having me uh Starfield out September 6th series X Series S PC uh looking forward to playing a heck of a lot more pretty soon Todd thank you so much thank you [Music]

Channel: IGN

Views: 676,183

Keywords: Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, Creation Engine 2, Open-World, PC, RPG, Starfield, TBA, The Elder Scrolls, The Elder Scrolls VI, Xbox Series X|S, ign, videogames, video games, gaming, pc, xbox, series s, series x, next-gen, next gen, starfield, game pass, rpg, roleplaying, role-playing, role playing, interview, todd howard, director, framerate, 60fps, 30fps, performance, elder scrolls 6, elder scrolls vi, tes6, fallout 5, summer of gaming, ign summer of gaming, SummerOfGaming

Id: 0Gs22Sn2VMU

Length: 27min 41sec (1661 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 11 2023