“There’s remote things that he just has to take a look at”: Todd Howard’s Workaholic Habit May be Responsible for the Greatest Bethesda Criticism
When it comes to an incredible legacy, Bethesda Game Studios is a company that not only has a long history but also a catalog packed with absolute bangers. Without many of the company’s leading RPGs, the genre would’ve turned out to be a lot different.
However, there’s no denying the fact that Bethesda’s recent games haven’t hit the mark. Fallout 76 is a tragedy that the studio probably wants to forget, and Starfield, despite its positive reception, didn’t deliver on what the players had hoped for.
What’s the reason for Bethesda fumbling its recent releases? There are many things, but one that might be the biggest factor is Todd Howard’s workaholic nature.
Todd Howard Might Be The One To Be Blamed For Bethesda’s Recent Failures
Bruce Nesmith is a person whose name you might’ve never heard, even though you’re a big fan of Bethesda’s RPGs.
He began working with the famed Dungeons & Dragons publisher TSR on Apple III titles and eventually partnered up with Bethesda as early as 1995, where he was one of the lead designers for The Elder Scrolls: Chapter II – Daggerfall. He stuck around the company until 2021 when he left to be an author.
Todd Howard Doesn’t Want You to Know the Bethesda Game That’s Even More Doomed Than Elder Scrolls 6
In an hour-long conversation with KIWI TALKZ, Nesmith opened up about his decades of experience working at Bethesda and his relationship with Todd Howard. At one point, he mentions that during the end of his tenure, Howard would have somewhere around two dozen projects at his table.
There’s remote things that he just has to take a look at, in addition to a variety of larger projects. So, that’s a lot.
It’s great to see that Howard is working so hard to push out multiple genre-defining hits. However, one man simply can’t handle all such projects. The company’s RPG keeps evolving with every entry and gets bigger in scale. Howard singlehandedly leads all the projects, and it puts too much pressure on him.
With how Bethesda’s projects are delayed so much, it’s evident that the pressure is getting to Howard. It’s always hard to wait for a new title in a beloved franchise. However, that pain is more felt by fans of Bethesda’s franchise than other fanbases.
One of the company’s biggest IPs, Fallout, has already gone years without a new mainline release, with Fallout 4 dating nine years ago. The Elder Scrolls 6 has just now entered production, and even that franchise hasn’t seen a release in over a decade. It’s high time Bethesda considered hiring more developers or outsourcing projects to give Howard some breathing room.
Former Lead Admits Bethesda Games Could Be More Refined
While Bethesda has given us some incredible games, its titles are undoubtedly bug-infested. Seriously, you can’t go a single minute without facing a game crash or UI glitch that completely ruins your experience, and even the company’s own ex-employees agree with the problems.
A Disastrous Flaw in Todd Howard’s Bethesda That Made Starfield Dev Quit Thankfully Never Affected Fallout, Elder Scrolls
In an interview with VideoGamer, Nesmith opened up about the development side of the company before he left in 2021. He admits that the company’s games could have a lot more time in the oven but believes there’s a good reason why the studio pushes out games that aren’t polished.
Having an NPC run in place in front of a wall for a little while became acceptable because of the 17 things you could do with that NPC, whereas most games you’d be able to do two.
Nesmith also states that the studio’s titles are so huge and include many moving parts that releasing a bug-free title is basically impossible. The studio has to make tough calls to publish something that’s filled with bugs or skip key deadlines.
Of course, there are plenty of game developers out there who give us buggy games, but the quality of the company’s overall recent work is a big reason why bugs might not be so overlooked as they were in Fallout 3 and Skyrim.
With that said, do you think it’s time for Bethesda to fast-track its big franchise releases? Let us know in the comments below.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
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