Bethesda’s Todd Howard is a pretty well-known name in gaming. For those unaware, he is the director of games like Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Fallout 4, and most recently Starfield. All these games are well known to have set a high standard for open-world role-playing games all over the world. But there are some titles that have gone even further.
Game director Todd Howard himself agrees that while Bethesda has won some very commendable titles over the years, there are others who have done better. Some have designed better worlds, while others have given their players far better side quests to enjoy. He even has a couple of games on his favorite list.
Bethesda’s Skyrim director Todd Howard says these two games have set high standards in their genres
Some games are just unforgettable; they give gamers the feeling that they will not leave their mind no matter what they do. This is what happened when gamers tried their hands on Skyrim for the first time. That game dropped them in an incredibly detailed open world that is still very exciting to explore.
Fallout 4’s wasteland was another such world, even though it’s not as appealing. It’s still the kind of world where people want to stay and explore for hours and hours. They would even want to kill a bandit or two every now and then.
Both of these games actually work so well because their director knew what he had to give gamers. Todd Howard designed worlds alongside his team that people fell in love with. Yet, he himself suggests that there were some games that did it even better.
He suggests that games like GTA 5 and The Witcher 3 did what they went out to do best. They achieved that kind of success by giving players that experience. One was the ultimate open-world game, while the other was an incredible role-playing experience.
“I think that’s true for a lot of big, popular games out there. Particularly the larger ones. You can look at Grand Theft Auto and no one’s topped that and what they do, or some other games out there. Clearly I thought The Witcher 3 was a fantastic game. There just aren’t that many, I think, because of the time and technology involved. When you look at The Witcher, that was their third one.”
He clearly suggests that the games that were made by Rockstar Games and CD Projekt Red were something else. But he also has an explanation for how they achieved that impossible feat. He suggests that Witcher 3 was not a game that came out in a day.
The developers were definitely working hard to get there. They learned from their previous efforts and built on them. It was the first ever open-world game by CD Projekt Red, after all. He then goes on to reveal how his own team worked on their games for years to get to titles like Fallout 3 and Skyrim.
It would be incredible to see where all three of these developers go next
While comparison between them is easy, what’s hard is to understand what direction they would go in next. For one, everyone knows Rockstar Games is working on GTA 6, and Bethesda is hard at work on Elder Scrolls 6. And of course, CD Projekt Red would be busy working on either the next Witcher or Cyberpunk.
The question is how they will make sure their games once again become as iconic and unforgettable as their predecessors. Building detailed open worlds would not do this time around; things have to go a bit further than that.
