Stop for a second and picture your favorite video game developer or publisher. It doesn’t matter their “scale” as long as they’re prominent. More than likely, you can name-drop at least one or two people who are the “faces” of that company. For example, Nintendo has Eiji Aonuma, Shigeru Miyamoto, Doug Bowser, etc. Microsoft has Phil Spencer, Sony has/had Jim Ryan, and on it goes. For Bethesda, they have/had many people who have helped define them over the years for one reason or another. Easily, the one that most people know is Todd Howard. He’s the guy who honestly makes the biggest announcements for the company and helps crank out their best games.
Recently, Bethesda got a big loss when Pete Hines was revealed to be leaving the studio after a LONG time, and that has put eyes on Todd Howard because he could be leaving next should certain things happen.
In an interview with MinnMax, former Skyrim designer Bruce Nesmith talked about the role of Howard and how big of a loss it would be to Bethesda if he also left the company. He said quite bluntly:
“That would leave a big hole, that would leave a vacuum that no one person would probably be able to fill. We’ve always maintained, those of us who work there, that Todd had an attribute that none of the rest of us did. He was always able to put himself into the seat of your everyday player, to a far better extent than the rest of the design team or the rest of the development team.”
He didn’t stop there, though:
“When you work on a big team like that, or probably anywhere in game development, and particularly if you have a string of successes, it’s really easy to get ivory tower syndrome. It’s really easy to see the world through a very elitist viewpoint, everything’s got high philosophy design concerns, and you lose touch. For all of that, that should have affected Todd as well. It didn’t. He was always able to see it from Joe Average Player’s perspective, and that’s an invaluable insight.”
Not to mention, it’s clear that he’s a brilliant game designer, and he knows how to get projects done. Sure, the latest Bethesda IP hasn’t been the most “Universally Loved” title ever, and they all regret a certain announcement they made several years ago, but that’s not fully on Howard.
While it’s inevitable that he will leave the company eventually, many are likely hoping he won’t leave soon.
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