Todd Howard Explained Why Bethesda's Games Are So "Irresponsibly Large"

Bethesda's games, such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield, are known for their expansive worlds, giving players hours of gaming experience. The company's Director and Executive Producer Todd Howard discussed the development of such complex in-game worlds and explained why the company's titles are so "irresponsibly large."

Howard said that games with large worlds reward players' curiosity. For instance, they might wonder, "What's over that hill," and the game allows them to find out. What is more, players can take different paths each time, having a unique playthrough each time. "I think the main thing that we try to achieve in our games is that you can play them for a long period of time, and your story, your experience was as unique as it could be to what you wanted to do," explained Howard. He continued: "We cut very little from our games at Bethesda, which is why the games are so irresponsibly large."

Bethesda's Starfield, which will soon see its DLC Shattered Space released, features a vast space universe that is free for players to explore, with dozens of solar systems and, therefore, thousands of planets. Creating such an extensive multi-planet world brought many technological and design challenges. The executive shared that the team was inspired by epic and large-scale universes such as Lord of the Rings, Interstellar, The Martian, and Battlestar Galactica.

Howard also shared that creating such detailed games takes a lot of time, but each release was "a big moment for us and our fans to revisit these worlds and experience something where even though they had before enough time and technology had gone by, that it feels new again."

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