Todd Howard: Game's Exclusivity Has Always Been "Normal" for Bethesda

Bethesda's director and executive producer Todd Howard has recently confirmed that the studio's next title, the upcoming action RPG Starfield, will not be released on PS5 and shared his thoughts on the game's exclusivity.

Speaking during Lex Fridman's podcast, Howard said that Bethesda's entire existence was one way or another focused on one platform – at first, it was PC, and with the release of Morrowind, the studio started releasing its RPGs on the Xbox consoles.

Starfield's director recalled that Oblivion was an Xbox 360 exclusive for a long time prior to its release for PlayStation 3 as well as some DLCs for Skyrim launched on PS3 later than they were released for PC and Xbox.

Howard explained that considering all this, focusing on one platform when developing a game has always been "kind of the norm" for the studio. He also admitted that he likes the ability to focus on one platform and added that, in the case of Starfield, he really enjoys this process as the Microsoft engineering team really helps the studio with development for Series X|S.

"We get into development and, say, we're focused on Xbox – and it's not abnormal for us in any way, it's been kind of the norm," he said. "And from a development side, you know, I like the ability to focus. So, our ability to focus and have help from [...] the top engineers at Xbox to say 'We are going to make this look incredible on the new systems', from my standpoint, is just awesome."

Howard, however, shared that developing Starfield does have some moments that are new to the company and that he feels "a lot of pressure" since now the team needs to release not just a good RPG but a game that will sell consoles.

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