As is self evident, Todd Howard’s hand can be seen everywhere across Starfield. Should we call Todd Howard an auteur? That would take away from the efforts of the hundreds of staff who worked on the game, from programmers and game designers, to the creatives who did voice acting, CG graphics, and other elements of the game, and even the testers and other support staff.
Maybe gamers shouldn’t be so loose applying the term auteur to everyone who supervises the work of a team in making a video game. But it is fair to say that Starfield was Todd Howard’s idea, and he largely played the leadership role in making sure that the final result would fit the general idea of what he thought would make a game good and successful. That doesn’t necessarily make the game his singular vision, that everyone else had to conform to, but we can call Starfield Todd Howard’s game, without claiming he came up with everything in it.
As reported by The Gamer, a few fans have been going a little crazy over at NexusMods, with mods that literally place Todd Howard’s face all over the game. Adventurous players may want to try to install and play with them themselves. None of them make Todd an in-game NPC, but to be fair, that may be unrealistic expectations for what modders can pull off in a matter of days.
Stargazer made a mod that replaces the boot-up logo and splash screen with Todd Howard’s perfect face. In Stargazer’s words:
“This is a simple mod to replace your game’s logos and splash screen with a couple [of] Todd Howard photos. I wanted to carry forward the tradition of one of the first mods being available being that which will change our brand new game into the man the myth the legend himself.”
Another, more maddening mod comes from ronaldomoon. He has seen it fit to replace every portrait in the Constellation room with Todd’s many moods in the realm of painting. That certainly sounds like the start of a good 1990s dream sequence.
Finally, you will literally have Todd with you everywhere you go, if you pick up GeraldMods’ grandhiose Todd Howard Flashlight Replacer. This mod ensures that every time you pull a flashlight to look into the darkness, you will see Todd starting back at you in the light the flashlight reflects. It’s the video game version of stretching out some film to project in the dark, ViewFinder style.
In a way, you can think of each of these mods making these modders the true auteurs. Well, not really, but it’s certainly fun to mess around with Bethesda games, isn’t it?
Starfield will be releasing on September 6, 2023, on Xbox Series X|S and Windows via Steam. It will also be Day One on Game Pass.
