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- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9GA8lsH8ls
- 00:00:00.670 [Music]
- 00:00:08.000 hello and welcome to develop brighton
- 00:00:09.519 2020 and our keynote session i'm james
- 00:00:11.759 batchelor uk editor at gamecentre.biz
- 00:00:14.160 in slightly less glamorous settings than
- 00:00:15.920 the usual hilton down on the seafront
- 00:00:17.840 uh i am delighted to be joined by todd
- 00:00:20.320 howard designer director and producer at
- 00:00:22.320 bethesda game studios todd thank you so
- 00:00:24.080 much for joining us thanks for having me
- 00:00:25.760 sorry i couldn't make it over but this
- 00:00:27.279 is uh
- 00:00:28.560 this will do this it's 2020 the fact
- 00:00:31.519 that we must
- 00:00:32.159 get you onto a zoom call that that's
- 00:00:34.000 that's an accomplishment
- 00:00:35.600 um todd has worked in the industry for
- 00:00:38.239 26 years almost entirely at bethesda he
- 00:00:40.800 began as producer and designer
- 00:00:42.480 on the terminator future shock in 1995
- 00:00:45.600 but has since had pivotal roles on
- 00:00:47.200 numerous elder scrolls games including
- 00:00:48.960 morrowind
- 00:00:49.520 oblivion and skyrim and fallout 3
- 00:00:52.160 fallout 4 and fallout 76
- 00:00:54.399 honors he has received include a place
- 00:00:57.280 in the academy of interactive arts and
- 00:00:58.960 sciences hall of fame
- 00:01:00.239 the gdc lifetime achievement award
- 00:01:02.079 germany's lara of honor
- 00:01:03.680 game lab spain's legend award the new
- 00:01:05.519 york game critics legend award and of
- 00:01:07.119 course this year's developed star award
- 00:01:09.360 um there is a lot to cram into the next
- 00:01:12.159 hour so i'm going to dive straight into
- 00:01:14.159 it
- 00:01:14.479 how did you get started in games and how
- 00:01:16.560 did you get started
- 00:01:17.759 at bethesda well i think it's you know
- 00:01:21.280 the
- 00:01:21.520 the time i grew up computers were just
- 00:01:24.159 hitting the schools you know maybe it
- 00:01:26.960 was the early 80s
- 00:01:29.119 and i was always into video games you
- 00:01:31.759 know i think people
- 00:01:32.640 of of that time period that's when video
- 00:01:34.880 games were coming
- 00:01:36.159 on computers and the arcades the the
- 00:01:38.560 atari 2600
- 00:01:40.159 and just kind of fell in love with
- 00:01:42.720 playing them
- 00:01:43.759 and once i got my hands on an apple ii
- 00:01:47.040 i wanted to figure out you know i want
- 00:01:49.759 to do this myself how do i make one so i
- 00:01:51.600 just started
- 00:01:52.320 you know made my first game when i was
- 00:01:53.600 12 um
- 00:01:55.439 and just kept writing my own games it
- 00:01:57.520 was it was my hobby
- 00:01:59.840 what was that first game what did the 12
- 00:02:02.000 year old todd howard produce
- 00:02:04.000 i what was my first one i there was a
- 00:02:06.799 star trek game at the time
- 00:02:08.399 where you plotted things and i made kind
- 00:02:10.080 of a rip-off where you were riding
- 00:02:12.319 shotgun
- 00:02:13.120 on a wild west uh you know wagon
- 00:02:16.800 and i i just i thought it was brilliant
- 00:02:20.160 i entered it in like a school computer
- 00:02:21.760 contest and i lost
- 00:02:23.840 and uh but i was undeterred
- 00:02:26.879 you've definitely shown them since i
- 00:02:28.319 think yes um you are obviously best
- 00:02:30.480 known for elder scrolls and fallout um
- 00:02:32.400 but as we mentioned you started with the
- 00:02:33.840 terminator game now i'll be honest i had
- 00:02:35.440 not heard of this game
- 00:02:36.400 until prior to doing this um this uh
- 00:02:39.040 keynote and
- 00:02:39.760 about that's not uncommon well about an
- 00:02:42.000 hour or time ago i looked up some
- 00:02:43.360 youtube footage and my god it looks
- 00:02:44.800 brilliant it's like a
- 00:02:45.920 terminator future shock was like a first
- 00:02:47.920 person rp it looked like a first person
- 00:02:49.760 rpg like
- 00:02:50.720 a terminator elder scrolls and tell us a
- 00:02:53.200 little bit more about your work on that
- 00:02:54.400 and
- 00:02:54.640 kind of the lessons you learned on that
- 00:02:56.319 first project you know
- 00:02:57.680 going through the rest of your career
- 00:03:00.159 that
- 00:03:00.959 you know there was a different time the
- 00:03:03.280 team was small
- 00:03:04.159 maybe it's eight people six ten i don't
- 00:03:06.319 remember say eight to ten people
- 00:03:08.560 um and when i started at bethesda we had
- 00:03:11.760 the terminator license
- 00:03:13.040 which was also in kind of a legal
- 00:03:16.159 uh fight i think it was carolco and
- 00:03:19.040 hemdale i don't remember point being we
- 00:03:20.959 had the license and there was nobody
- 00:03:22.640 checking on us
- 00:03:24.080 so which is brilliant and
- 00:03:28.239 this was our 3d engine at the time and
- 00:03:30.239 future shock is kind of the first
- 00:03:33.040 3d first person full 3d first person
- 00:03:35.519 shooter
- 00:03:36.560 we did mouse look controls um
- 00:03:40.080 and just a blast of a project so people
- 00:03:43.680 think about fallout that we do elder
- 00:03:45.120 scrolls and fallout
- 00:03:46.000 we go between you know fantasy worlds
- 00:03:48.959 and then these post-apocalyptic worlds
- 00:03:50.720 but we were doing that then
- 00:03:52.560 right in the mid-90s um and so when it
- 00:03:55.920 came to fallout we had already
- 00:03:57.840 you know i had already built 3d
- 00:04:00.080 post-apocalyptic worlds and
- 00:04:01.680 the levels were wide open but it was a
- 00:04:03.439 really really fun project
- 00:04:05.040 where we kind of got to do whatever we
- 00:04:07.680 wanted and
- 00:04:08.319 and move fast nice i genuinely encourage
- 00:04:11.599 people to look this up on youtube
- 00:04:13.040 because
- 00:04:13.439 i'm not even that big a terminator fan
- 00:04:14.720 but that looked fun like that there was
- 00:04:16.160 about a year ago when like everything
- 00:04:17.680 had the terminator license i think you
- 00:04:19.040 guys need to get it back
- 00:04:20.000 maybe kind of maybe a remaster we need a
- 00:04:22.000 reason it's come up but i
- 00:04:23.440 i think it's unlikely fair enough so how
- 00:04:26.479 did you go from the terminator
- 00:04:28.000 like a licensed tie-in to the elder
- 00:04:30.160 scrolls theory so so my understanding is
- 00:04:31.680 like by the time
- 00:04:32.400 you you first worked on daggerfall so
- 00:04:34.479 arena was already out
- 00:04:35.759 arena had just come out when i started
- 00:04:38.720 on floppy so my first
- 00:04:40.639 role was um there was a basketball game
- 00:04:44.560 i was put on i'm a big sports fan too so
- 00:04:46.560 they had an ncaa basketball game
- 00:04:49.199 um that i produced and then i was put on
- 00:04:52.080 to the cd-rom version
- 00:04:53.840 of arena so arena had just come out so i
- 00:04:56.160 worked in the cd-rom version daggerfall
- 00:04:58.080 was in
- 00:04:59.440 development and again the development
- 00:05:00.880 staff was maybe
- 00:05:02.560 20 people the whole company was like 20
- 00:05:04.720 some people tops
- 00:05:06.160 and so everybody kind of worked on
- 00:05:07.440 everything future shock was my main
- 00:05:09.520 project
- 00:05:10.400 um but i was also on daggerfall and then
- 00:05:13.120 when feature shock wrapped up
- 00:05:14.960 i was full-time daggerfall but everybody
- 00:05:17.440 was
- 00:05:19.199 so how did the series or how did working
- 00:05:21.840 on the series differ back then because
- 00:05:23.120 obviously you know
- 00:05:23.919 the technology was somewhat more limited
- 00:05:25.759 the hardware was somewhat more limited
- 00:05:27.039 you compare like arena and dagon fall to
- 00:05:28.880 say morrowind and it's very obviously
- 00:05:31.199 um a much more primitive is a harsh word
- 00:05:33.520 but you know what i mean like a much
- 00:05:34.479 more kind of basic version of what would
- 00:05:35.919 eventually become morrow and oblivion
- 00:05:37.440 skyrim like but in terms of the actual
- 00:05:39.199 design process
- 00:05:40.160 like how what differed back then well i
- 00:05:42.639 think
- 00:05:43.360 you know look when you look at games
- 00:05:45.280 certain things can seem primitive
- 00:05:47.120 through the lens of time and technology
- 00:05:50.080 but at the top we were doing similar
- 00:05:52.240 things that we do now believe it or not
- 00:05:55.199 so even though the scale has increased
- 00:05:57.600 what we were doing in comparison to
- 00:06:00.880 other games
- 00:06:02.000 really has not one of the one of the
- 00:06:03.600 exercises i love
- 00:06:05.280 is to go back and read old reviews
- 00:06:08.479 of games and if you go back and read a
- 00:06:11.680 review of
- 00:06:12.560 arena or daggerfall
- 00:06:15.680 that the words they use and the way they
- 00:06:17.360 express the game the way it makes them
- 00:06:19.280 feel it's similar to the way we want the
- 00:06:22.479 elder scrolls in the games today to feel
- 00:06:25.440 and so um
- 00:06:28.479 obviously it was smaller we moved we
- 00:06:30.639 moved a lot faster so the games
- 00:06:32.800 they were they they took shorter to
- 00:06:34.800 develop but the goals
- 00:06:36.240 and the way we thought about it really
- 00:06:38.560 are
- 00:06:39.280 really aren't that different there have
- 00:06:42.240 been differences
- 00:06:43.280 over the years so kind of let's look at
- 00:06:44.800 um a bit broader before we dive into
- 00:06:46.400 each one
- 00:06:46.960 and as in each its title how did the
- 00:06:49.360 series evolve from your point of view
- 00:06:51.280 like what were the the key steps forward
- 00:06:53.360 like the key advantages in that that
- 00:06:54.960 elder scrolls formula because you go
- 00:06:56.400 back to arena
- 00:06:57.280 and even daggerfall need the bare bones
- 00:06:59.520 of of what would become morrow and
- 00:07:01.039 oblivion skyrim
- 00:07:02.000 is there so what were the big steps
- 00:07:04.000 forward in terms of advancing that
- 00:07:05.840 formula as it were
- 00:07:07.599 well i think they take steps in terms of
- 00:07:11.520 tam arena sets the world of tamriel you
- 00:07:14.319 know okay you can go anywhere and do
- 00:07:15.440 whatever you want
- 00:07:16.160 daggerfall makes a step design wise
- 00:07:19.840 primarily in the character system it's a
- 00:07:21.919 really really good character system with
- 00:07:23.360 skills arena is an xp based game
- 00:07:26.240 most people associate elder scrolls with
- 00:07:28.400 used skills and improve them now
- 00:07:30.479 um that was a daggerfall thing and then
- 00:07:32.639 more wind there was a big gap too
- 00:07:34.880 company went through some some difficult
- 00:07:37.120 times uh financially
- 00:07:39.599 and um the company had shrunk
- 00:07:44.240 we made some bad games we made some
- 00:07:45.759 mistakes and the development team
- 00:07:48.400 and we probably went down to six people
- 00:07:50.879 so that's kind of the
- 00:07:52.479 i see more wind as the beginning of kind
- 00:07:55.039 of
- 00:07:56.560 bethesda 2.0 or this you know the
- 00:07:58.479 bethesda you'll know today
- 00:08:00.560 really started with with more wind and
- 00:08:03.520 we did take a step
- 00:08:05.039 back in terms of moving away from kind
- 00:08:07.759 of an
- 00:08:08.160 infinite procedural world which arena
- 00:08:10.479 and daggerfall are basically
- 00:08:12.080 infinite random procedural worlds
- 00:08:15.280 to a handcrafted one i'm a big fan of
- 00:08:18.000 the ultima's
- 00:08:19.599 and i really wanted to move it
- 00:08:22.639 where it felt more real on a
- 00:08:25.840 minute-to-minute basis
- 00:08:27.680 with the items in the world the things
- 00:08:29.840 you could do
- 00:08:30.879 and so morrowind becomes um a very large
- 00:08:34.320 game
- 00:08:35.360 but a handcrafted game
- 00:08:39.200 well let's see them dive into that a
- 00:08:40.719 little bit let's let's go on attention
- 00:08:42.640 handcrafted versus procedural generation
- 00:08:44.720 like we've
- 00:08:45.760 we've seen a lot more open worlds in in
- 00:08:47.760 recent years like um
- 00:08:49.839 stuff arguably that kind of builds on
- 00:08:52.000 games like morrowind
- 00:08:53.360 and everything's on open world now and
- 00:08:55.920 there is a mix between you've got your
- 00:08:57.600 handcrafted worlds you know things like
- 00:08:59.200 your big assassin's creeds your witches
- 00:09:00.880 you know your side behind those sort of
- 00:09:02.080 things and then you do still have these
- 00:09:03.680 procedurally generated ones your things
- 00:09:05.200 like um no man's sky
- 00:09:06.800 like what the advantage of disadvantages
- 00:09:09.040 either way like what is it that gives
- 00:09:10.240 you a preference for a handcrafted world
- 00:09:12.800 i don't necessarily have a pr a
- 00:09:14.240 preference so we've done a bit of both
- 00:09:16.160 oblivion then the landscape is somewhat
- 00:09:18.800 procedural
- 00:09:19.680 then we went over it with hand just to
- 00:09:21.600 make sure things are the way we like
- 00:09:24.800 and so i think a mix is good procedural
- 00:09:27.600 helps you
- 00:09:28.160 we do still do some procedural quests
- 00:09:30.080 and storytelling in those ways or
- 00:09:32.160 random encounters it keeps it
- 00:09:36.080 um it keeps it fresh where
- 00:09:40.240 we don't know what exactly is going to
- 00:09:41.600 happen all the time and the players
- 00:09:42.959 don't know what's going to happen but
- 00:09:43.920 there's a difference between
- 00:09:45.279 the world itself you know we want to
- 00:09:47.920 spend our time
- 00:09:48.880 handcrafting the things that you can
- 00:09:51.760 tell are handcrafted whereas nature
- 00:09:54.800 computers can do a good job at putting
- 00:09:57.519 trees and rocks and making landscape
- 00:09:59.200 around that you can massage
- 00:10:01.279 so we want to make sure for the scale of
- 00:10:04.160 our our development and our team that
- 00:10:06.240 we're touching the things that are most
- 00:10:07.760 important and if we can use procedural
- 00:10:09.680 systems
- 00:10:10.560 to generate content um that keep the
- 00:10:13.519 game kind of
- 00:10:14.880 everlasting then that's what we want to
- 00:10:17.440 lean on
- 00:10:18.480 and so we went away for it for a while
- 00:10:21.120 and then we've been coming back to it
- 00:10:23.600 over time that we like to experiment
- 00:10:27.600 each game with
- 00:10:28.399 somewhat procedural stuff and then when
- 00:10:30.000 it where it's not working out
- 00:10:31.440 we go in and touch it um and the stuff
- 00:10:33.839 we're doing now
- 00:10:35.120 we're pushing procedural generation
- 00:10:39.200 further than we have in a very very long
- 00:10:41.279 time with the stuff that's coming up
- 00:10:43.519 nice so elder scrolls six all
- 00:10:45.040 procedurally generated confirmed lovely
- 00:10:46.959 thank you
- 00:10:49.360 um let's dive in a little bit more on uh
- 00:10:51.120 morrow and then as you said like it for
- 00:10:52.800 you it was kind of the start of the 32.0
- 00:10:54.560 it certainly
- 00:10:55.360 um feels like a a moment in the elder
- 00:10:58.560 scrolls system uh series history and
- 00:11:00.399 bethesda's history like it was
- 00:11:02.240 it was my introduction to um the series
- 00:11:04.720 it was my introduction to open world
- 00:11:06.240 rpgs and certainly to um
- 00:11:08.160 to what the western style rpg and uh i
- 00:11:11.760 haven't gone back since
- 00:11:13.200 um from your point of view like what was
- 00:11:15.600 the impact it had like from from
- 00:11:16.959 internally like you know
- 00:11:18.240 this game came out and it was bigger
- 00:11:19.760 than anything you guys had done before
- 00:11:21.760 bigger in terms of scale and style i'd
- 00:11:25.200 say rather than
- 00:11:25.839 like you said it's a specific region so
- 00:11:28.160 geographically
- 00:11:29.120 it is not the biggest game you have made
- 00:11:31.040 but in terms of production it certainly
- 00:11:32.800 was like what was the impact
- 00:11:34.480 you know internally like the the success
- 00:11:37.519 that morrowind had
- 00:11:40.240 well it was it was huge you know again
- 00:11:42.320 the company had gone through a lot of
- 00:11:43.680 troubles
- 00:11:44.480 um and that was a game where
- 00:11:47.760 i i put it in this context that we kind
- 00:11:50.480 of had no fear
- 00:11:51.839 like we felt the company was going to go
- 00:11:53.440 out of business so we got a chance to
- 00:11:55.440 make more when it's like
- 00:11:57.120 what's the worst that's gonna happen
- 00:11:58.880 let's just make
- 00:12:00.160 the the game that we know we want and
- 00:12:02.560 the fans want and not be
- 00:12:05.120 afraid not that you're afraid in other
- 00:12:08.000 games but we took
- 00:12:08.959 we took a few more risks on that game
- 00:12:12.720 and you know if it hadn't worked out i
- 00:12:15.519 don't know that we'd
- 00:12:16.880 we'd be here um and
- 00:12:20.720 it worked out better than we we could
- 00:12:22.800 have imagined people really gravitated
- 00:12:24.959 toward it
- 00:12:25.600 it did incredibly well on the xbox i
- 00:12:28.880 believe
- 00:12:29.839 it was the second best seller behind
- 00:12:31.519 halo it
- 00:12:32.959 obviously did well in the pc but that
- 00:12:34.959 our introduce
- 00:12:36.160 introduction to consoles there that was
- 00:12:38.800 also a risk for us and something very
- 00:12:40.560 new
- 00:12:41.200 do people even want that style of rpg in
- 00:12:43.680 a console at the time it's very
- 00:12:45.200 it's very final fantasy type games um
- 00:12:49.360 and that really was a huge jumping off
- 00:12:52.320 point where we knew
- 00:12:54.800 hey people really want this we're on to
- 00:12:56.639 something and
- 00:12:58.320 it allowed us to invest even more and do
- 00:13:01.519 oblivion
- 00:13:02.639 and get the fallout license so the
- 00:13:04.639 fallout license is actually
- 00:13:07.279 acquired during that gap between
- 00:13:10.000 morrowind
- 00:13:11.040 and oblivion even though oblivion comes
- 00:13:13.360 out first
- 00:13:14.720 and that was a i would say oblivion is a
- 00:13:18.079 very big bet for the company too where
- 00:13:19.839 most companies would say
- 00:13:22.160 we must have right mourin's a big hit
- 00:13:24.240 you clearly would jump onto a sequel
- 00:13:26.800 and you know fortunate enough in our
- 00:13:29.200 company that
- 00:13:30.000 we were able to say we'd rather take
- 00:13:32.880 about
- 00:13:33.279 four years and go to these next-gen
- 00:13:36.000 consoles and pcs that are coming
- 00:13:38.560 and make this game and that was where
- 00:13:42.000 you know we're incredibly lucky to have
- 00:13:43.600 the support of a great company that
- 00:13:44.959 allowed us to do that
- 00:13:47.199 did anything change um when it came to
- 00:13:49.519 like kind of the
- 00:13:50.399 momentum the atmosphere the ethos behind
- 00:13:53.199 uh oblivion because like
- 00:13:54.399 you said morrowind was kind of developed
- 00:13:55.920 with no fear it's kind of like you know
- 00:13:57.360 the company may go bust so let's just
- 00:13:58.720 throw everything at it
- 00:14:00.000 um i know i believe you've said
- 00:14:02.560 previously in interviews that
- 00:14:03.760 oblivion you kind of lost the the game
- 00:14:06.480 lost the sense of wonder that morrowind
- 00:14:08.079 had like i wonder like because you
- 00:14:09.839 you essentially then have expectations
- 00:14:11.279 as you said like most companies would be
- 00:14:12.480 like right this needs to be a sequel
- 00:14:13.760 has done so well
- 00:14:15.279 this needs to do even better like
- 00:14:17.040 there's more pressure there
- 00:14:18.480 did that change the way you kind of
- 00:14:20.160 approached it
- 00:14:22.160 no i don't think there was more pressure
- 00:14:23.440 we were taking just as many
- 00:14:26.000 they were more calculated risk with
- 00:14:27.680 oblivion because you go in oblivion
- 00:14:29.360 pretty confident
- 00:14:31.040 people are going to want th this game is
- 00:14:32.480 going to do well right whereas morrowind
- 00:14:35.120 you know you're not as sure how well
- 00:14:37.600 it's going to do
- 00:14:38.959 there was some confidence with what we
- 00:14:40.399 were doing with oblivion that it would
- 00:14:41.839 be
- 00:14:42.639 successful on some level did not expect
- 00:14:45.440 the success that one had either oblivion
- 00:14:47.760 just becomes this
- 00:14:49.440 kind of lightning rod for next
- 00:14:51.199 generation gaming at the time
- 00:14:53.360 um it won all the game of the year
- 00:14:56.000 awards
- 00:14:57.360 um the comment you referenced that i
- 00:15:00.079 made about oblivion losing some of
- 00:15:02.399 morrowinds
- 00:15:03.199 oblivion is comfortable in its setting
- 00:15:05.360 it's very classic
- 00:15:06.399 fantasy and there the things that make
- 00:15:09.519 tamriel or the elder scrolls unique
- 00:15:12.079 in the world they're subtle in oblivion
- 00:15:15.519 they're clearly not like morrowind's
- 00:15:17.839 vibe is intentionally
- 00:15:20.160 very exotic stranger in a strange land
- 00:15:24.079 an oblivion after we were past it
- 00:15:27.360 felt it got a little watered down
- 00:15:31.519 in the world around you but the gameplay
- 00:15:34.240 and the character systems i think were
- 00:15:36.480 um much improved over oblivions
- 00:15:39.600 and that was one of the things going
- 00:15:40.720 into skyrim where um
- 00:15:44.639 we want something that has a little bit
- 00:15:46.560 of familiarity
- 00:15:48.079 in terms of okay i'm not in a bizarre
- 00:15:50.639 world
- 00:15:51.440 but has this epicness of a fantasy world
- 00:15:55.519 that has
- 00:15:56.639 a real identity
- 00:15:59.839 how do you balance that i guess you're
- 00:16:01.519 trying to create a fantasy world that
- 00:16:04.320 is unique he stands up on his own um but
- 00:16:07.040 also you want enough familiar elements
- 00:16:08.880 to
- 00:16:09.440 to bring people in like i apologize i
- 00:16:11.120 may ramble here but like
- 00:16:12.480 yeah so morrowind i i played and i it's
- 00:16:15.279 stunning nothing i've played before you
- 00:16:16.959 know this giant silt strider at sedona
- 00:16:18.880 and it's like i have no idea what that
- 00:16:20.079 is you have floating niches everywhere
- 00:16:21.680 it felt like a very different world
- 00:16:23.440 giant mushrooms that you know bigger
- 00:16:25.120 than trees
- 00:16:25.920 this feels like a unique fantasy world
- 00:16:28.480 got to oblivion and i absolutely loved
- 00:16:30.320 it but
- 00:16:30.959 there were elements is like well the
- 00:16:32.880 guards here kind of look like they're
- 00:16:34.320 from lord of the rings and cyrodiil
- 00:16:36.720 looks like yeah the the imperial city
- 00:16:38.720 looks a little bit kind of ministerious
- 00:16:40.480 to me
- 00:16:41.120 you get to skyrim and you can feel and
- 00:16:44.399 you can feel influence a little bit from
- 00:16:46.639 say like game of thrones that sort of
- 00:16:48.320 thing
- 00:16:49.519 as it white thorne is the the the town
- 00:16:51.759 the first time you go to
- 00:16:52.959 after um after the first little village
- 00:16:55.120 like it felt kind of very editor-ass
- 00:16:56.720 from lord of the rings
- 00:16:57.680 there's there's more elements there
- 00:16:59.440 there's like right i can almost see
- 00:17:01.279 where the
- 00:17:01.920 the inspiration has come from here
- 00:17:03.680 rather than this feels
- 00:17:05.280 completely totally out of some
- 00:17:06.720 developer's imagination is that
- 00:17:08.400 if that's fair to say like how do you
- 00:17:10.400 balance yeah coming up with
- 00:17:12.079 something completely different but then
- 00:17:14.000 something welcoming enough that people
- 00:17:15.919 like ah
- 00:17:16.720 i get this this is a fancy thing i know
- 00:17:18.480 where i stand
- 00:17:19.919 well we want to be authentic to the
- 00:17:22.480 world where
- 00:17:23.839 we're in right so when we approach
- 00:17:25.760 skyrim
- 00:17:27.359 what is what feels authentic for that
- 00:17:29.679 part
- 00:17:30.400 of tamriel and not have it be
- 00:17:33.760 all snow that was one of our worries
- 00:17:35.840 going in well it's going to be all snow
- 00:17:37.200 so
- 00:17:37.679 varying the landscape in a way when i
- 00:17:40.160 say inviting even the beginning of
- 00:17:42.000 morrowind
- 00:17:43.200 that part of the world you start in has
- 00:17:45.520 some sort of classic
- 00:17:47.600 medieval tropes and you start in the
- 00:17:50.559 south
- 00:17:51.520 west and when you get to the northeast
- 00:17:54.640 that's where it's you know extra crazy
- 00:17:58.240 you want to lead the player into that
- 00:18:00.880 where
- 00:18:01.919 um it's good to peak there you want to
- 00:18:04.000 peak the curiosity but not make them
- 00:18:05.840 uncomfortable
- 00:18:07.440 if that makes sense so the references
- 00:18:09.919 that you have
- 00:18:10.720 for skyrim um you know it actually
- 00:18:13.280 predates
- 00:18:14.000 game of thrones in terms of when we were
- 00:18:16.720 making it and when it came out
- 00:18:18.160 overlapped there's some um
- 00:18:21.440 you know i think you look at uh you
- 00:18:24.000 mentioned interest those things
- 00:18:25.440 uh ministerith those
- 00:18:28.559 ultimately are based on the same they go
- 00:18:30.720 back to the same reference points in
- 00:18:32.480 architecture whether that's
- 00:18:34.000 scandinavian or roman or those kind of
- 00:18:35.919 things
- 00:18:37.440 obviously some of that stuff seeps in
- 00:18:39.679 i'm you know big fan of lord of the
- 00:18:41.200 rings the books
- 00:18:42.000 and the movies and
- 00:18:46.400 the one thing in skyrim that we spent
- 00:18:49.760 probably more time on people don't maybe
- 00:18:53.039 notice are the nordic ruins how were the
- 00:18:55.520 nords living what were their gods how
- 00:18:57.360 did they worship them
- 00:18:59.039 and so even though you're going to see
- 00:19:01.039 some architecture or things like that
- 00:19:02.720 that are familiar to you
- 00:19:04.240 i think when you get into the ancient
- 00:19:06.799 nord stuff
- 00:19:07.600 and alduan's wall and these kind of
- 00:19:09.360 things i think we hit a really good i'm
- 00:19:11.919 very
- 00:19:12.400 pleased with how that turned out and we
- 00:19:14.720 iterated on that
- 00:19:16.160 a lot we will come back to skyrim but i
- 00:19:19.600 am trying to work through this
- 00:19:20.919 semi-chronologically if i can
- 00:19:23.200 so as you mentioned like you guys got
- 00:19:24.640 the the fallout license before
- 00:19:27.039 uh oblivion came out so fallout 3 was
- 00:19:29.039 kind of in the works
- 00:19:30.400 um fallout had been away for some years
- 00:19:32.960 or at least at least certainly hadn't
- 00:19:34.480 been as prominent and
- 00:19:36.320 what were the challenges of updating
- 00:19:38.320 fallout um
- 00:19:39.360 for modern platforms because like
- 00:19:40.559 fallout 3 was completely different to
- 00:19:43.440 all previous fallout games like they
- 00:19:44.720 were very much that kind of the top-down
- 00:19:45.919 isometric style rpg
- 00:19:47.280 and here you are with a fallout 3 that
- 00:19:48.720 is essentially like a post-apocalyptic
- 00:19:50.640 oblivion
- 00:19:51.360 or morrowind like um what was the
- 00:19:53.840 challenges of yeah taking this this
- 00:19:55.919 other franchise and applying your
- 00:19:58.400 formula to it in a way that that works
- 00:20:00.400 but doesn't feel like you've just
- 00:20:01.440 reskinned your older games
- 00:20:04.320 yeah that was we had wanted to sort of
- 00:20:06.960 branch out
- 00:20:07.760 and have something other than elder
- 00:20:09.760 scrolls and we hadn't we had a number of
- 00:20:11.760 ideas
- 00:20:12.640 and post-apocalyptic there were sci-fi
- 00:20:14.960 in there as well
- 00:20:16.400 um was near the top of the list but
- 00:20:19.679 for me it had to be fallout like we
- 00:20:22.000 could have made our own
- 00:20:23.520 but there was something very special
- 00:20:25.360 about the fallout world
- 00:20:27.520 and the ip had been dormant and some
- 00:20:29.600 folks in our company
- 00:20:31.039 new people at interplay and we were able
- 00:20:33.200 to acquire it
- 00:20:35.280 and that to me is one of the favorite
- 00:20:38.559 moments of my career when someone says
- 00:20:40.559 what would you like to make
- 00:20:41.600 well i'd really like to make fallout but
- 00:20:43.440 we don't have it and then
- 00:20:44.720 maybe six eight months went by and i can
- 00:20:46.799 remember to this day
- 00:20:48.480 this yellow sticky note someone todd
- 00:20:50.960 vaughn
- 00:20:52.000 left on my keyboard it said fallout is
- 00:20:54.799 yours
- 00:20:55.840 and i came back and like when does that
- 00:20:58.159 happen
- 00:21:00.559 and we were just overjoyed
- 00:21:03.760 we we knew what we would do with it like
- 00:21:05.919 apply the kind of game that we were
- 00:21:08.159 making
- 00:21:09.120 in that kind of world and the main thing
- 00:21:12.960 that we looked at was how to handle the
- 00:21:15.840 guns
- 00:21:17.120 like what's an rpg we don't is it a
- 00:21:19.039 first person shooter
- 00:21:20.559 how do we tread that line and that's
- 00:21:22.960 where we came up with the vat system
- 00:21:25.120 to to bring some of the rpg ness into it
- 00:21:27.600 where
- 00:21:28.320 your own personal um
- 00:21:31.360 you know finger twitch skills don't
- 00:21:33.600 matter
- 00:21:34.559 to the extent that they would in some
- 00:21:37.039 other games
- 00:21:38.000 but that to this day is one of my
- 00:21:41.600 favorite projects that i've ever worked
- 00:21:44.080 on i mean obviously we love them all
- 00:21:46.080 but that one holds a special place
- 00:21:48.240 because it was so new for all of us
- 00:21:51.120 and when you're making a fallout game
- 00:21:55.120 there's just so much you can do
- 00:21:59.039 there's very few ideas
- 00:22:03.360 that if you're sitting around going oh
- 00:22:04.799 this would be great that you can't fit
- 00:22:07.039 in a fallout game in some manner
- 00:22:10.559 you know it mixes obviously
- 00:22:13.000 post-apocalyptic it's part drama
- 00:22:15.440 it's part dark comedy it's part b movie
- 00:22:19.520 um and it can move but if you're doing
- 00:22:21.679 it right it can move between those
- 00:22:24.000 in a way that it forges its own identity
- 00:22:28.159 um so obviously over time we got the
- 00:22:31.600 license in 2004 16 years ago
- 00:22:34.960 um and it's been
- 00:22:38.240 you know very very special to all of us
- 00:22:40.880 who've had the opportunity to work on it
- 00:22:43.020 [Music]
- 00:22:44.720 let's dive a little into the young the
- 00:22:46.159 differences between the design decisions
- 00:22:47.679 like you said like you you there's
- 00:22:48.880 certain things in fallout that
- 00:22:50.320 that just do not apply to elder scrolls
- 00:22:51.840 for example guns like yo i know you've
- 00:22:53.760 got
- 00:22:54.000 ranged weapons in elder scrolls but it's
- 00:22:56.000 not quite the same as a gun
- 00:22:57.520 um like yeah how do you approach
- 00:23:00.480 designing a fallout game differently to
- 00:23:02.240 approaching early designing and elder
- 00:23:04.000 scrolls
- 00:23:06.840 well what we've done in the in the
- 00:23:09.679 previous ones particularly in 3m
- 00:23:11.360 we'll talk fallout 3 and 4 is that the
- 00:23:14.640 story is a bit more linear
- 00:23:18.559 that and the characters in it are more
- 00:23:21.360 specific
- 00:23:22.000 we're telling a more specific story in a
- 00:23:25.200 fallout game
- 00:23:26.559 and the choices that you make are
- 00:23:31.440 in many ways more we want them
- 00:23:35.039 dialogue-wise to be more difficult
- 00:23:37.360 choices who do you who do you side with
- 00:23:39.919 who lives who dies what are you going to
- 00:23:41.600 sacrifice
- 00:23:43.679 to live given the nature of the world
- 00:23:46.799 you're in
- 00:23:47.760 elder scrolls is and again i'm
- 00:23:50.960 generalizing there's a huge overlap
- 00:23:53.679 and most people can see that they'll see
- 00:23:55.200 similar systems in the games
- 00:23:57.200 elder scrolls is a bit more systemic
- 00:24:00.640 in its design you know intentionally you
- 00:24:03.760 can
- 00:24:04.000 join all the factions there's not a
- 00:24:06.320 specific choice
- 00:24:07.760 there's some in skyrim with the
- 00:24:10.080 imperials
- 00:24:11.120 and the um nords but so we
- 00:24:16.000 again i'm generalizing but that if i if
- 00:24:18.640 i were to go back and look at it is
- 00:24:20.240 is is a bit of a difference in how we
- 00:24:22.720 approach
- 00:24:24.080 each one how do you but this is this is
- 00:24:27.039 going to tie into a certain
- 00:24:28.320 personal bugbear is a strong word but
- 00:24:30.240 like a personal thing that i find with
- 00:24:31.919 uh
- 00:24:32.240 with some open world games um how do you
- 00:24:35.120 balance
- 00:24:35.679 telling a more linear story because as
- 00:24:37.120 you say fallout have has a more
- 00:24:38.880 you know direct storyline and the more
- 00:24:41.360 the elder scrolls games can very much be
- 00:24:42.960 right
- 00:24:43.520 you can either follow the main questline
- 00:24:45.200 or just naf off and do your own thing
- 00:24:47.120 um fallout phil for like they have a
- 00:24:49.200 very good setup up right
- 00:24:50.559 this is the story this is what's
- 00:24:51.679 happened now you're unleashed from the
- 00:24:53.039 world the
- 00:24:54.080 vault is unlocked you need to go and do
- 00:24:56.400 this objective
- 00:24:57.279 while nothing often doing your own thing
- 00:24:59.919 but the
- 00:25:00.880 but the balance between trying to tell a
- 00:25:02.720 story and trying to tell them on this
- 00:25:03.919 urgent
- 00:25:04.559 or try that has a kind of a momentum
- 00:25:06.720 without killing that sense of
- 00:25:08.000 exploration so fallout 3 was right
- 00:25:10.400 i've got to get out here my dad has gone
- 00:25:12.640 missing
- 00:25:13.440 um i'm gonna go to this town and here
- 00:25:16.159 i'm gonna find lots of different quests
- 00:25:17.520 that lead off in loads of different
- 00:25:18.720 directions
- 00:25:19.760 whereas fallout 4 you are right my child
- 00:25:22.799 has been
- 00:25:23.679 kidnapped i need to go find them
- 00:25:26.720 and that makes it difficult that can
- 00:25:28.799 make it difficult it's like right
- 00:25:30.080 i need to find my child my child has
- 00:25:31.360 been missing but i'm first going to stop
- 00:25:33.360 and help this robot
- 00:25:34.640 gardener make a you know greenhouse full
- 00:25:36.960 of plants like
- 00:25:38.480 the the the dissonance between yeah
- 00:25:41.600 this is the story you're trying to tell
- 00:25:43.279 and this is a joy the player wants to
- 00:25:45.279 experience or the adventure the player
- 00:25:46.960 wants to have how do you balance that
- 00:25:49.919 that's tricky i don't know that we've
- 00:25:52.240 we've solved it right you want some sort
- 00:25:54.640 of time pressure
- 00:25:56.159 on the player but that fights against
- 00:25:59.679 anything else you're doing like you said
- 00:26:03.039 the stories we've told in elder scrolls
- 00:26:05.360 suit that
- 00:26:06.799 suit that better right the fallout
- 00:26:10.000 ones fallout 3 i think has more
- 00:26:13.600 pressure to you know get out and and
- 00:26:17.600 find your father
- 00:26:19.039 to find your son thing in fallout 4
- 00:26:21.840 because of the way you're
- 00:26:24.240 frozen we wanted some element of this is
- 00:26:27.360 a mystery
- 00:26:28.799 there's not the same time pressure
- 00:26:32.640 and there's still some dissonance as you
- 00:26:34.880 mentioned
- 00:26:37.520 but in fallout 4 i do think
- 00:26:41.760 the player matches with
- 00:26:45.279 you the player match with the character
- 00:26:47.120 on the screen
- 00:26:49.520 better in many ways than fallout 3
- 00:26:54.320 not to say fallout 3 doesn't um so when
- 00:26:57.120 you step
- 00:26:57.679 out you feel like you're experiencing
- 00:27:00.159 the outside world like
- 00:27:01.440 you feel a little bit the loss of it
- 00:27:03.039 being destroyed because you were there
- 00:27:05.360 you feel the loss of your family
- 00:27:08.480 and the game throws a lot of mechanics
- 00:27:11.679 at you
- 00:27:13.360 and it's intentional that
- 00:27:16.960 you're trying to find your way it takes
- 00:27:18.320 a little while for you to feel
- 00:27:19.520 comfortable
- 00:27:20.960 in that world um and it's a while before
- 00:27:24.080 you see another human
- 00:27:25.840 and even though you've bought the game
- 00:27:27.120 you know there's going to be other
- 00:27:28.159 humans at least one of this thing where
- 00:27:29.919 if you're really
- 00:27:30.559 into it there's a moment there's a few
- 00:27:33.360 let's call it an hour
- 00:27:34.880 where you think am i the only person
- 00:27:36.720 alive
- 00:27:39.039 um that being said fallout 3's beginning
- 00:27:42.960 is the favorite my favorite beginning of
- 00:27:45.200 a game that we've
- 00:27:46.080 done it is a great beginning and if you
- 00:27:48.399 go back and play it it's overly long
- 00:27:50.720 it feels long but the first time you
- 00:27:52.559 play it
- 00:27:54.159 without that opening when you step out
- 00:27:56.720 you don't get the
- 00:27:57.760 feeling of i've lived my whole life in
- 00:28:00.320 the vault
- 00:28:02.080 um and that got a lot of question marks
- 00:28:05.919 internally when i was pitching it
- 00:28:07.600 you know really how long is that going
- 00:28:09.600 to take like i don't know
- 00:28:11.840 we'll do it feels right but i think it's
- 00:28:13.600 important when you step
- 00:28:14.880 out yeah not just the visual but the
- 00:28:17.600 emotion of it
- 00:28:20.080 it it works for like the reality of what
- 00:28:24.320 you're
- 00:28:25.039 playing yeah massively it can it drives
- 00:28:27.760 home like the scope of the world that
- 00:28:29.520 you've stepped out into
- 00:28:31.200 more so more so than just like you know
- 00:28:33.279 you start in a vault you open the door
- 00:28:34.799 oh look i'm in a big world like it
- 00:28:36.399 it doesn't quite work as well i think
- 00:28:37.919 before that fourth thing i have to say
- 00:28:39.520 is probably because i'm
- 00:28:40.480 i was playing shortly after my wife had
- 00:28:43.279 given birth to our son
- 00:28:44.960 sorry my first one no no no no no it's
- 00:28:46.640 all it was it was you know it was
- 00:28:47.760 perfect during paternally one night he's
- 00:28:49.440 he's kind of
- 00:28:50.159 you know sleeping here and i'm like very
- 00:28:52.000 carefully playing while he's asleep
- 00:28:53.679 um but i was playing i was playing a
- 00:28:55.760 female character and just the idea that
- 00:28:57.440 like
- 00:28:58.000 right this woman not doing everything to
- 00:29:00.240 go and find her son first that just
- 00:29:02.159 jarred with me personally that's just
- 00:29:03.760 personal circumstance right
- 00:29:05.360 and back on track because i'm i'm going
- 00:29:07.520 on tangents and i apologize
- 00:29:08.880 let's go back to skyrim so skyrim was
- 00:29:11.360 the next big game
- 00:29:12.960 um not only the most successful elder
- 00:29:15.279 scrolls game but i believe you told me
- 00:29:16.720 the most successful bethesda game of all
- 00:29:18.640 time
- 00:29:19.360 why why is it that this one more than
- 00:29:21.679 say morrowind
- 00:29:22.640 oblivion or even fallout 3 why was it
- 00:29:24.640 this game finally drew millions into
- 00:29:26.880 kind of the
- 00:29:28.480 the the bethesda formula of open world
- 00:29:31.200 games
- 00:29:33.120 well i can't i you know what if i could
- 00:29:35.279 answer that why that one was so
- 00:29:37.120 successful it'd be easy to do it time
- 00:29:39.360 and time again
- 00:29:40.799 i don't you know um i think it touched a
- 00:29:43.919 nerve
- 00:29:44.399 it was our third go-around within that
- 00:29:48.080 hardware cycle
- 00:29:49.600 so we had and one of the great things
- 00:29:52.240 about
- 00:29:52.720 being at um bethesda
- 00:29:56.399 i'm going to back up by the way because
- 00:29:58.640 when i said i'm sorry i was sticking in
- 00:30:00.480 my head like i'm sorry you had a baby i
- 00:30:02.480 didn't mean it that way
- 00:30:04.159 in my mind i was feeling guilty you just
- 00:30:05.679 had a baby and then we kill the wife or
- 00:30:08.240 father
- 00:30:08.880 and steal it like yeah that that didn't
- 00:30:11.760 help i'll be honest
- 00:30:12.799 yeah i think it's great that you're
- 00:30:15.279 absolutely man that was
- 00:30:16.720 it's fine it's fine because i'm thinking
- 00:30:19.200 back of shooting we we motion captured
- 00:30:21.120 that scene it was quite
- 00:30:23.279 okay now we'll go back to scott
- 00:30:27.360 you know so i think the timing of skyrim
- 00:30:29.600 uh
- 00:30:30.799 in terms of ourselves we were really
- 00:30:34.000 honing what we what we had been doing
- 00:30:37.039 and it's a very inviting game it was the
- 00:30:40.159 game
- 00:30:40.640 where anybody who liked
- 00:30:44.080 fantasy in any way could say hey you
- 00:30:47.200 gotta see this
- 00:30:48.640 um the platforms had matured by then so
- 00:30:51.679 the amount of
- 00:30:52.720 um people that had access to the game
- 00:30:56.080 you know i think success is is is often
- 00:30:58.880 based on access
- 00:31:00.159 how many people can easily play it um
- 00:31:03.519 and it like it just
- 00:31:06.559 it just touched a nerve you mentioned
- 00:31:08.480 game of thrones which came out soon
- 00:31:10.240 after
- 00:31:11.120 so fantasy maybe was in in the zeitgeist
- 00:31:13.679 and that was an avenue that people could
- 00:31:15.519 apply to it
- 00:31:16.320 but ultimately i think it's it's ongoing
- 00:31:19.039 success
- 00:31:20.399 is kind of what what some not just
- 00:31:22.480 skyrim but other what do it would
- 00:31:24.640 do well and the thing i think video
- 00:31:27.519 games are best at
- 00:31:28.880 are are putting people in a world games
- 00:31:31.760 do
- 00:31:32.000 geography very well and then saying what
- 00:31:35.039 would you do here
- 00:31:36.240 and then having the world react to it
- 00:31:38.320 and skyrim
- 00:31:39.919 it does that it has a flow and a vibe
- 00:31:43.440 that whether whoever you are
- 00:31:46.559 if you like games at all there's
- 00:31:48.159 something for you
- 00:31:50.159 and the game you give to the game
- 00:31:53.840 and the game keeps giving back
- 00:31:57.440 you mentioned obviously that you did m
- 00:31:58.960 several goes at the hardware cycle
- 00:32:00.559 and so it's kind of it was tail end of
- 00:32:02.240 the previous generation
- 00:32:03.760 um or previous previous generation since
- 00:32:05.440 we're on the cusp of the new generation
- 00:32:06.640 i lose track we're very
- 00:32:08.799 we're on that cusp here don't we um
- 00:32:11.840 if you were making skyrim from scratch
- 00:32:13.840 for the new consoles because i'm going
- 00:32:15.440 to assume that it's going to come to
- 00:32:16.559 this
- 00:32:17.120 question this is not a trade question
- 00:32:18.720 this is a strict question no i promise
- 00:32:20.640 you no trick questions here
- 00:32:22.240 um if if you were making scarring from
- 00:32:25.279 scratch from the new consoles
- 00:32:26.799 what would you be able to do that would
- 00:32:28.159 be possible now what
- 00:32:29.919 that wasn't in the original version like
- 00:32:31.600 were there ideas that had to be cut that
- 00:32:33.279 ps5 or xbox series x
- 00:32:35.120 would have enabled probably just the
- 00:32:37.760 amount
- 00:32:38.799 of npcs in there obviously you get the
- 00:32:41.840 fidelity
- 00:32:42.640 right so the graphics will be better but
- 00:32:44.240 whatever um
- 00:32:46.159 the amount of npcs and the feeling of
- 00:32:49.760 the other people in skyrim and how they
- 00:32:51.600 react to you the cities are
- 00:32:54.960 in your mind like you've been to white
- 00:32:56.559 run and that's this this big city
- 00:32:58.799 but it's not and maybe there's
- 00:33:02.640 20 people walking around total um
- 00:33:07.360 so that's probably the main thing where
- 00:33:09.360 the hardware and those kind of things
- 00:33:10.799 get you
- 00:33:11.600 um but by then we had gotten pretty good
- 00:33:14.559 with our technology at streaming and
- 00:33:16.399 those kind of things
- 00:33:17.760 where we were able to throw a lot of
- 00:33:19.519 stuff coming in the world
- 00:33:22.480 but yeah probably the people i seem to
- 00:33:25.279 remember there was um
- 00:33:26.399 there were when scotland was first
- 00:33:27.760 announced there was a plan to there were
- 00:33:29.200 going to be arenas in different cities
- 00:33:31.279 um and you were going to be able to play
- 00:33:33.200 in different those and that that got cup
- 00:33:34.960 um but there was there was this weird
- 00:33:36.559 economy feature where like right
- 00:33:38.240 if there was a village that was reliant
- 00:33:41.039 on the logging industry
- 00:33:42.399 if you burned down the lumber yard that
- 00:33:44.799 village would
- 00:33:46.000 not be able to trade wood which would
- 00:33:47.279 affect the rest of the world's economy
- 00:33:50.480 we had that working it affected the
- 00:33:52.159 prices but nobody could tell
- 00:33:54.000 like you don't know like oh wow the wood
- 00:33:56.159 is cheaper
- 00:33:57.440 so we took out the price changing just
- 00:34:00.399 wasn't
- 00:34:01.519 impactful but you can still sabotage the
- 00:34:04.080 lumber mills and those kind of things
- 00:34:05.519 and that
- 00:34:06.080 f i believe filters into the civil war
- 00:34:09.280 stuff
- 00:34:10.159 but those those systems work and
- 00:34:11.839 actually there's some very nice
- 00:34:12.879 animations for sabotaging the lumber
- 00:34:14.639 mill
- 00:34:15.199 i clearly have not sabotaged enough
- 00:34:16.719 lumber mills
- 00:34:18.399 just doesn't affect
- 00:34:22.320 um a good character who happened to be a
- 00:34:24.000 thief but um
- 00:34:26.079 the running joke about skyrim is
- 00:34:27.440 obviously that it is on every platform
- 00:34:29.918 um ever uh i'll be honest i have
- 00:34:32.480 actually played the
- 00:34:33.440 alexa version and i really enjoyed it
- 00:34:35.440 for about half an hour before i realized
- 00:34:36.879 it is just an
- 00:34:37.520 endless scene of um procedurally
- 00:34:40.399 randomly generated questions i'm not
- 00:34:41.760 actually
- 00:34:42.239 making any progress all i'm doing is
- 00:34:43.839 wasting half an hour yeah
- 00:34:45.440 you spell there was a joke going like
- 00:34:48.719 hey skyrim's on everything and i was
- 00:34:50.639 reading some reddit thread
- 00:34:52.639 and uh someone posted they should make
- 00:34:55.119 it there's you know so they should make
- 00:34:56.480 it for alexa
- 00:34:58.000 and i was like oh that would be really
- 00:34:59.520 funny and we were going into e3
- 00:35:02.240 and i was like hey what if we made fun
- 00:35:04.240 of ourselves and pretended you know we
- 00:35:06.560 did this fake commercial
- 00:35:08.320 um for the alexa version
- 00:35:11.680 and so we started working so the joke
- 00:35:14.880 was to make the commercial
- 00:35:16.720 like we're poking fun at ourselves going
- 00:35:18.320 to come out in alexa
- 00:35:19.920 but then we took the joke the full way
- 00:35:24.400 so the thing i love about e3 we show the
- 00:35:26.320 thing and you think it's just a joke
- 00:35:27.920 but then if the next day if you say it
- 00:35:29.920 to alexa
- 00:35:31.119 um play skyrim it's real and what's
- 00:35:34.160 great is since alexa's on everything
- 00:35:37.440 skyrim there's an alexa toilet so by
- 00:35:39.920 default
- 00:35:40.640 there you go that's genius um
- 00:35:44.800 are there other platforms you would want
- 00:35:46.320 it to bring it to i don't know if you
- 00:35:47.440 saw the um there was going around um
- 00:35:48.880 twitter like a couple of weeks back
- 00:35:50.480 someone has managed to get doom eternal
- 00:35:52.480 up and running on on the monitor of a
- 00:35:54.720 smart fridge
- 00:35:55.599 so skyrim on smart fridges that seems
- 00:35:57.760 like a you know the next step right
- 00:35:59.359 i think someone has the opening of
- 00:36:01.040 skyrim i saw it on reddit
- 00:36:02.720 on a like digital pregnancy test
- 00:36:06.880 oh it needs a lot i think it's just a
- 00:36:08.240 video feed obviously
- 00:36:10.320 um still gives you a challenge that's a
- 00:36:12.880 pretty good one
- 00:36:14.480 those things that those things are
- 00:36:15.599 single use you could definitely get like
- 00:36:17.040 more money
- 00:36:17.760 if you if you can buy those for their
- 00:36:19.359 use and then play skyrim on that
- 00:36:21.520 we're getting silly now so let's move on
- 00:36:23.359 um
- 00:36:24.880 we touched on fallout 4. i'd like to
- 00:36:26.800 leap ahead to um fallout 76
- 00:36:29.040 sure because this was very very
- 00:36:30.400 different not just from the previous
- 00:36:31.920 fallout games but
- 00:36:32.880 from previous bethesda games because it
- 00:36:34.400 was it was multiplayer centric
- 00:36:36.320 um and the thing that fascinated me the
- 00:36:38.480 idea of like
- 00:36:39.440 uh this this game that gives you quest
- 00:36:41.440 but there are no
- 00:36:42.480 npc quest givers just standing around
- 00:36:44.320 like you're coming out into this ruined
- 00:36:45.760 world and you've got to kind of
- 00:36:46.960 investigate and and find quests
- 00:36:50.000 to do and without some chap standing
- 00:36:52.160 there saying oh
- 00:36:53.119 yes can you go yonder to bandit camp and
- 00:36:55.440 kill them for me
- 00:36:56.560 um what were the big challenges of doing
- 00:36:58.560 that like completely yeah
- 00:36:59.680 multiplier-centric no
- 00:37:00.960 npcs that you can rely on like what are
- 00:37:02.400 the challenges of making fallout 76
- 00:37:04.400 compared to three and four
- 00:37:07.280 geez what wasn't a challenge on that
- 00:37:09.040 game um
- 00:37:11.119 you know that started as a multiplayer
- 00:37:13.680 mode
- 00:37:14.480 in fallout 4. we didn't quite
- 00:37:17.520 you know the quests in fallout 4 like
- 00:37:19.359 okay this is not going to work in a
- 00:37:20.560 multiplayer scenario
- 00:37:22.000 and we were playing a lot of survival
- 00:37:23.520 games at the time dayz was popular some
- 00:37:25.520 other things and we said oh this would
- 00:37:26.960 be
- 00:37:27.920 this would feel really good as a you
- 00:37:30.320 know obviously fallout's a survival game
- 00:37:32.160 let's let's make a prequel
- 00:37:33.920 um so it kind of started as a side
- 00:37:35.680 project
- 00:37:37.040 that grew some momentum we really really
- 00:37:39.200 enjoyed it
- 00:37:40.079 it's a project that changed a lot while
- 00:37:41.599 we were making it so we asked all those
- 00:37:43.440 questions
- 00:37:44.720 um you know the story stuff and the
- 00:37:47.200 quests that went in the game
- 00:37:49.280 didn't go in until i don't want to say
- 00:37:51.760 halfway through the project but it felt
- 00:37:53.280 late
- 00:37:54.000 in the project and i think our designers
- 00:37:57.119 did a
- 00:37:57.680 did a great job with one arm tied behind
- 00:38:00.079 their back trying to tell stories
- 00:38:01.520 through holotapes a lot of them i really
- 00:38:03.280 love
- 00:38:04.000 and terminals and things like that
- 00:38:08.160 and whereas the survival aspects i think
- 00:38:12.320 work for a lot of people we quickly
- 00:38:15.200 recognize that that's
- 00:38:16.560 not the game wasn't really hitting
- 00:38:20.640 with this group it wasn't really giving
- 00:38:23.280 our audience
- 00:38:24.800 what they wanted and i think they were
- 00:38:26.160 really they were really let down
- 00:38:28.720 by what we delivered on on day one
- 00:38:30.960 without a doubt
- 00:38:32.079 um let a lot of people down so
- 00:38:35.520 it over time has drifted if you want to
- 00:38:38.000 play it like a classic fallout game
- 00:38:40.320 it delivers that but you can you can do
- 00:38:42.400 it with friends
- 00:38:43.680 and we've also found a lot of
- 00:38:47.040 of those kind of systemic gameplay that
- 00:38:49.280 we want
- 00:38:50.079 that work in survival but in a nice way
- 00:38:52.400 so
- 00:38:53.359 fortunate the game's in a really really
- 00:38:54.960 good place now um but it's
- 00:38:57.680 you're trying to say hey what were the
- 00:38:58.800 differences oh everything yeah
- 00:39:02.400 well let's go on that and you said like
- 00:39:04.240 you know the game is in a good place now
- 00:39:05.680 and like we've we've seen this here and
- 00:39:07.280 there of
- 00:39:07.839 a game that has come out and not
- 00:39:10.720 performed as expected at launch or
- 00:39:12.400 certainly had some some teething issues
- 00:39:14.000 some troubles at launch certainly had
- 00:39:15.359 like a negative reaction at launch
- 00:39:17.440 but then recovered like so i'm thinking
- 00:39:19.520 things like you know no muscle is the
- 00:39:20.880 big one
- 00:39:21.520 um and i believe drive club managed it
- 00:39:23.520 as well and i think fallout 76 can now
- 00:39:25.200 be
- 00:39:25.520 added to that list like but we've seen
- 00:39:27.599 so many other games where you know it
- 00:39:29.119 comes out it
- 00:39:30.560 struggles a bit at launch and then six
- 00:39:32.880 months a year down the line it is just
- 00:39:34.400 shut down
- 00:39:35.280 and what does it take to take a game
- 00:39:38.160 from
- 00:39:39.119 and there's a strong way of putting it
- 00:39:40.160 but i think it's safe a failed launch or
- 00:39:42.079 at least a
- 00:39:42.880 sure yeah yeah what do you take how do
- 00:39:45.440 you take again from a failed launch to
- 00:39:47.119 one that actually
- 00:39:48.400 people still take seriously because no
- 00:39:50.320 matter what you do to improve it there
- 00:39:52.240 are people who will still hear fallout
- 00:39:53.680 76 and think
- 00:39:54.880 oh that was naf at launch i won't bother
- 00:39:56.800 like sure how
- 00:39:58.079 yeah that that in itself is a big
- 00:39:59.680 challenge like how do you how do you
- 00:40:00.960 recover from a launch like that
- 00:40:03.520 well for better or worse our companies
- 00:40:05.520 done it we had elder scrolls online not
- 00:40:07.520 that wasn't my group
- 00:40:09.520 but the zenimax online folks had been
- 00:40:11.760 through that for us
- 00:40:13.760 elder scrolls online had a you know very
- 00:40:15.760 muted response a very bad launch
- 00:40:18.079 and they retooled the game and really
- 00:40:19.680 put their heads down to solve it and now
- 00:40:21.359 that's one of the most
- 00:40:22.640 popular mmos that has been and still is
- 00:40:26.560 so they helped us a lot in terms of
- 00:40:28.880 here's here's some things you should do
- 00:40:31.119 ultimately we were fortunate i would say
- 00:40:34.800 the main thing that made the difference
- 00:40:36.400 is
- 00:40:37.200 despite the issues um and the very
- 00:40:40.960 well-deserved criticism we got
- 00:40:44.400 there were a lot of people playing it
- 00:40:46.480 there were a lot of people who said
- 00:40:48.480 obviously not the scale of a regular
- 00:40:50.400 fallout we would do like a three or a
- 00:40:52.160 four
- 00:40:53.119 but a lot of people millions of people
- 00:40:56.560 who said i actually want this i want it
- 00:40:58.960 to be good
- 00:41:00.480 and that community so no there is
- 00:41:03.040 something here
- 00:41:04.720 let's keep at it and we also felt look
- 00:41:07.839 we had let
- 00:41:09.200 we had let everybody down and it is
- 00:41:13.359 the i think the only thing to do in that
- 00:41:15.839 case
- 00:41:16.720 is to find a way you're not erasing that
- 00:41:19.200 moment
- 00:41:20.160 but you're making it right for the
- 00:41:22.960 people who
- 00:41:24.560 that is what they wanted they right and
- 00:41:27.599 so
- 00:41:28.800 um hugely proud of the team
- 00:41:31.920 who's worked on the game and month after
- 00:41:34.560 month
- 00:41:35.440 just made it better made it better made
- 00:41:37.839 it better
- 00:41:40.319 so i don't think there's a magic formula
- 00:41:42.800 other than
- 00:41:44.560 um having the discipline to go through
- 00:41:47.200 the work
- 00:41:48.000 but without that community out there
- 00:41:49.760 that said that's
- 00:41:51.599 you know making the game their own um
- 00:41:54.400 really believing in us
- 00:41:56.319 um i don't know that we would have
- 00:41:57.680 gotten to where we are
- 00:42:00.160 and you were saying earlier that uh you
- 00:42:02.640 can now play
- 00:42:03.440 for fallout 76 very much like a
- 00:42:05.200 traditional fallout game
- 00:42:06.640 um and a large part of that has helped
- 00:42:08.560 is the the wastelanders expansion which
- 00:42:10.079 essentially kind of makes it
- 00:42:11.680 almost single player to an extent or at
- 00:42:13.359 least gives you the option to play
- 00:42:14.480 single player
- 00:42:15.520 and when making that kind of
- 00:42:19.200 did that what assumptions do you think
- 00:42:21.359 you made or did you make about what
- 00:42:23.440 people wanted to play in a live service
- 00:42:25.280 game
- 00:42:25.680 that they got wrong and then how did
- 00:42:26.960 wastelanders kind of address that
- 00:42:30.240 well when we went into it
- 00:42:33.839 we wanted to make something different
- 00:42:35.839 but the audience doesn't always want
- 00:42:37.599 something different and that's no fault
- 00:42:40.560 of theirs right it's totally
- 00:42:42.160 understandable and i think maybe we did
- 00:42:45.839 a bad
- 00:42:46.640 job saying how different it
- 00:42:49.680 it's going to be and so
- 00:42:54.400 for us when we went to add the npcs it
- 00:42:56.319 was well how would we
- 00:42:58.079 how would we do this we wanted to make a
- 00:43:00.880 very systemic
- 00:43:02.000 game where the players brought all of
- 00:43:04.240 that to it
- 00:43:07.040 had some successes there but probably
- 00:43:08.880 more more failures
- 00:43:11.119 and once we figured out okay how can we
- 00:43:13.920 tell a story how can we bring npcs in
- 00:43:16.560 where it feels like the world has
- 00:43:18.720 evolved so once we got on that
- 00:43:20.800 hey people have come back and we're
- 00:43:23.280 going to tell this evolving story
- 00:43:25.440 in the world where even if you're the
- 00:43:28.319 trick is
- 00:43:29.520 we didn't want it where if you play 76
- 00:43:32.000 now
- 00:43:33.119 you've missed all of the content that
- 00:43:36.319 was there in the beginning we didn't
- 00:43:37.520 like remove it
- 00:43:38.640 so the trick is doing an evolving world
- 00:43:41.119 and the game's going to obviously
- 00:43:42.160 continue and so we've thought about that
- 00:43:43.680 okay what happens in year three what
- 00:43:45.040 happens in year four et cetera et cetera
- 00:43:47.440 so that was the trick more than the um
- 00:43:50.560 the quest systems per se
- 00:43:54.160 uh it has started to rain here so i
- 00:43:55.760 apologize we're gonna get a very amsr
- 00:43:57.440 sort of effect so i'm gonna keep my
- 00:43:59.520 questions as brief as possible
- 00:44:01.040 and if you were to make a similar game
- 00:44:03.040 in future
- 00:44:04.079 would you still try to keep it purely
- 00:44:05.920 multiplier is there scope for a purely
- 00:44:07.839 multiplayer only style
- 00:44:09.839 bethesda open world game
- 00:44:13.520 i mean you don't want to say never
- 00:44:17.359 um i think the one you know
- 00:44:20.560 the one thing that we would do
- 00:44:22.560 differently is
- 00:44:24.560 put it out there 24 7 live before we're
- 00:44:28.000 really charging people you know full
- 00:44:30.960 price game to play
- 00:44:32.480 you really have to beta test these
- 00:44:34.000 things um for a long period of time
- 00:44:36.480 24 7 with live players so they are they
- 00:44:39.520 are a different
- 00:44:40.240 they are a different animal than a
- 00:44:42.400 regular single player game
- 00:44:43.920 that we would do but i would never um
- 00:44:46.640 it's been
- 00:44:47.200 overall it's been a really positive
- 00:44:48.720 experience for us it's made us much
- 00:44:50.000 better developers it's made us better
- 00:44:52.560 connected with our community and so
- 00:44:55.599 um i can't say it's gonna be a one-off
- 00:44:59.520 obviously the stuff we have coming
- 00:45:00.720 starfield elder scrolls six
- 00:45:02.640 our single-player games um but i
- 00:45:04.560 wouldn't i wouldn't rule it out in the
- 00:45:06.000 future it's been a very positive
- 00:45:07.440 experience
- 00:45:09.280 i'm very conscious of how quickly time
- 00:45:11.040 is getting on but i'm sorry
- 00:45:12.480 i i wish i had two hours with you this
- 00:45:13.920 would be glorious let's look a bit over
- 00:45:15.680 i'm good
- 00:45:16.640 okay good marvelous marvelous um let's
- 00:45:19.440 look a little bit
- 00:45:20.400 further you know the future um what
- 00:45:23.359 possibilities do
- 00:45:24.400 the next gen consoles or you know the
- 00:45:25.920 next generation of here consoles and pc
- 00:45:27.599 hardware
- 00:45:28.079 have for both elder scrolls and fallout
- 00:45:30.079 and more importantly like the
- 00:45:31.520 the engine they run on which critics
- 00:45:34.560 have sometimes argued
- 00:45:35.680 needs a refresh because it's it seems to
- 00:45:38.000 be certainly like
- 00:45:39.119 a similar engine to the one you made the
- 00:45:40.880 morrowind on if not the same as oblivion
- 00:45:42.800 like
- 00:45:43.520 the the tech underneath your your games
- 00:45:47.200 um does that need a refresh and what can
- 00:45:49.839 the next gen
- 00:45:50.800 uh do to kind of help add more oomph to
- 00:45:54.000 it i guess
- 00:45:54.880 sure will we refresh it with every game
- 00:45:57.760 um
- 00:45:58.240 we too will acknowledge it needs uh more
- 00:46:01.200 work than it has in in previous times
- 00:46:03.280 and we do that between
- 00:46:04.720 generations and we've we've been doing
- 00:46:07.599 it i can say
- 00:46:08.480 that the engine work we started a while
- 00:46:11.040 ago
- 00:46:12.160 i didn't want to say oh my god
- 00:46:15.200 it's been a while we have more people
- 00:46:16.880 doing engine work now by a factor of
- 00:46:18.800 five
- 00:46:19.680 probably than we've ever had so the
- 00:46:21.440 overhaul in our engine
- 00:46:22.960 um is the largest we've probably ever
- 00:46:25.760 had
- 00:46:26.240 maybe you know larger than morrowind to
- 00:46:29.280 oblivion
- 00:46:30.319 there are things we do that we still
- 00:46:31.839 like the way we the way we build our
- 00:46:33.520 worlds the way people can mod it these
- 00:46:35.359 are things i think that are
- 00:46:36.480 fundamentally good about our tech stack
- 00:46:40.160 but from rendering to animation to
- 00:46:42.480 pathing to procedural generations i
- 00:46:44.800 don't want to say everything but
- 00:46:46.640 it's a significant significant overhaul
- 00:46:49.599 it's taken us longer than
- 00:46:51.200 we would have liked but um it's
- 00:46:54.720 it's gonna power what we're doing with
- 00:46:56.240 star field and elder scrolls vi
- 00:46:58.480 and i think when when people see the
- 00:47:00.640 results they'll be
- 00:47:02.160 hopefully as happy as we are uh with
- 00:47:04.560 what's on the screen but also in
- 00:47:06.400 how we can go about making our games
- 00:47:11.119 do hardware advances kind of
- 00:47:12.640 automatically mean better games like as
- 00:47:14.640 you as you say like you you
- 00:47:15.920 refresh your technology or you at least
- 00:47:17.359 kind of take a look at your technology
- 00:47:18.480 every time there is
- 00:47:19.200 an advance in uh you know console
- 00:47:22.160 technology and pc
- 00:47:24.079 like but you look like one one of
- 00:47:26.559 bethesda's biggest launch of the last
- 00:47:28.160 few years has been skyrim on switch
- 00:47:30.559 which is an eight-year-old game
- 00:47:32.240 on a console that's essentially a tablet
- 00:47:34.319 with a mobile graphics processor
- 00:47:36.240 like so do we even need super advanced
- 00:47:38.559 consoles and then like a super advanced
- 00:47:40.400 engine i know i'm going against my
- 00:47:41.599 previous question
- 00:47:42.880 but do we need like super advanced
- 00:47:44.720 console super advanced um technology
- 00:47:46.800 to make games that people want to buy i
- 00:47:48.559 guess i mean the short answer is no
- 00:47:51.359 right but you can say okay what does it
- 00:47:54.960 give you
- 00:47:56.240 and i think for the games we make the
- 00:47:59.200 fidelity goes up and yes there's some
- 00:48:01.119 diminishing returns
- 00:48:02.800 over time for the impact of that but i
- 00:48:06.160 do
- 00:48:06.559 think you who's who who plays a lot of
- 00:48:09.440 games
- 00:48:10.240 can go back and think of those games
- 00:48:12.000 they played where they booted it up and
- 00:48:13.760 it
- 00:48:14.240 it put you in this world and you were
- 00:48:15.680 like whoa
- 00:48:17.359 and i think graphics and fidelity
- 00:48:20.559 are a big means to that and so
- 00:48:24.160 i go back to that thing reading the old
- 00:48:25.599 reviews when you when you step out
- 00:48:27.760 into the world of oblivion or you step
- 00:48:30.240 out of the vault and fall out three
- 00:48:32.319 i do think hardware um you know clock
- 00:48:35.520 cycles matter
- 00:48:36.960 in pulling off a a world you step into
- 00:48:41.520 that feels i've i've never seen anything
- 00:48:44.319 like this
- 00:48:44.960 oh my gosh and can i do this and can i
- 00:48:47.760 do
- 00:48:48.000 this um so that
- 00:48:51.040 that moment i still think we can do
- 00:48:56.160 in in new ways and often that relies on
- 00:49:00.079 hardware
- 00:49:01.359 do advances in hardware change how you
- 00:49:04.000 view
- 00:49:04.720 game design and how you approach a
- 00:49:06.079 project um like
- 00:49:08.400 do you get to the stage well their
- 00:49:09.839 moments in technology are great now we
- 00:49:11.680 can do
- 00:49:12.240 this that we could never do before it's
- 00:49:13.760 completely different like are there
- 00:49:15.040 moments like that and what
- 00:49:16.000 sort of examples could you give
- 00:49:19.119 um for us it's been
- 00:49:23.040 the world around you you're pulling off
- 00:49:24.640 the farce in oblivion not something that
- 00:49:26.480 you could do
- 00:49:28.559 before that game i think going forward
- 00:49:30.640 you had already mentioned what would you
- 00:49:31.599 do different i think you know
- 00:49:32.800 the npcs how reactive they are how many
- 00:49:35.040 there are around you
- 00:49:37.119 um but i think when i when i think about
- 00:49:39.119 the next generation
- 00:49:41.040 for me it's about accessibility
- 00:49:45.200 right i'm going to move away from
- 00:49:46.640 fidelity and say
- 00:49:48.400 you look at the new consoles how fast
- 00:49:50.000 they load or the quick resume
- 00:49:52.079 stuff on xbox i just want to play this
- 00:49:54.480 game
- 00:49:55.200 now i want to be right where i was and
- 00:49:57.280 then maybe i can pick that up on my
- 00:49:58.720 phone or a tablet or another console or
- 00:50:00.720 my pc
- 00:50:01.839 so i think that friction between i'm
- 00:50:04.480 playing them into it and i
- 00:50:06.400 i want to pick that up and have it go
- 00:50:08.160 with me and have it kind of be
- 00:50:10.079 frictionless
- 00:50:11.839 i think ultimately the next
- 00:50:15.119 five years i'll go further even 10
- 00:50:18.800 is about making that seamless for
- 00:50:21.839 everybody who loves games and bringing
- 00:50:23.760 that to people
- 00:50:25.040 who are in parts of the world or their
- 00:50:27.280 or their technology
- 00:50:28.559 that they have access to as far as
- 00:50:30.319 hardware is not as available maybe
- 00:50:32.559 they're on tablets or phones
- 00:50:34.160 um and and bringing everything we're
- 00:50:36.720 doing
- 00:50:37.440 to everybody you have mentioned
- 00:50:40.559 starfield a few times so i feel i feel
- 00:50:42.559 i'm now allowed to ask
- 00:50:43.920 um i i want to ask about starfield but i
- 00:50:47.680 know that like it's it's
- 00:50:48.880 far enough out that you're not going to
- 00:50:50.000 give me anything concrete today like
- 00:50:51.599 when
- 00:50:52.559 when will we hear more about starfields
- 00:50:54.400 because it was announced what two
- 00:50:56.079 years ago three years ago
- 00:50:59.119 two yeah two years ago yeah so it's it's
- 00:51:02.240 been out there a while and all we've
- 00:51:03.920 seen is a teaser like
- 00:51:06.000 when can we expect more i can't
- 00:51:09.520 i honestly cannot answer that right now
- 00:51:11.920 um but i had to ask
- 00:51:13.359 no that's fair to ask and yeah the
- 00:51:16.800 reason we announced that stuff is we're
- 00:51:19.839 at the time doing 76 and elder scrolls
- 00:51:23.280 mobile game
- 00:51:24.319 and we wanted to make sure our fans knew
- 00:51:26.160 here are the things coming up
- 00:51:28.160 we knew at the time look these things
- 00:51:29.520 are going to be a ways off but it still
- 00:51:31.599 felt better to engage and say
- 00:51:33.920 here's what we're making um
- 00:51:36.960 look it's going to be a while till
- 00:51:38.559 people hear about it and really really
- 00:51:40.559 see it
- 00:51:42.559 and i could debate that right so a lot
- 00:51:46.000 of us say we should just start showing
- 00:51:47.680 stuff
- 00:51:49.280 but then you worry about showing some
- 00:51:50.880 things and then people get really
- 00:51:52.079 excited they're like then the next
- 00:51:53.119 question is when's it coming out you're
- 00:51:54.240 like well
- 00:51:55.119 just wait or then it gets delayed or the
- 00:51:57.520 you know etc
- 00:51:58.559 etc and we like to
- 00:52:02.079 as much as possible when we show it
- 00:52:04.160 really be able to show
- 00:52:05.839 what the final product feels like looks
- 00:52:08.720 like and we're
- 00:52:09.440 we're closer to release so that we're
- 00:52:11.760 100 confident here it is
- 00:52:14.319 here's what it does and here's when you
- 00:52:16.559 can play it
- 00:52:18.319 but again i could i could debate that
- 00:52:19.839 there's no i've seen it done every way
- 00:52:22.000 and there's no
- 00:52:22.720 there's no right or wrong i guess that's
- 00:52:24.720 a big challenge in itself is like
- 00:52:26.160 managing the expectations you've
- 00:52:27.359 announced it exists
- 00:52:28.640 and now there is already in anticipation
- 00:52:30.960 and momentum and
- 00:52:32.000 expectations growing like people are
- 00:52:33.920 probably already assuming like it's
- 00:52:35.040 elder scrolls in space or fall out in
- 00:52:36.559 space like
- 00:52:37.200 and it might not be it might be
- 00:52:38.160 something completely different like but
- 00:52:40.640 how do you manage that because like as
- 00:52:42.079 as you say like when i'm going back to
- 00:52:44.160 our ascarim
- 00:52:45.040 example earlier like i remember hearing
- 00:52:47.280 when it was an outside all right there's
- 00:52:48.400 going to be this cool
- 00:52:49.280 thing where you can just mess with the
- 00:52:50.720 world's economy and there's going to be
- 00:52:52.640 arenas in every city and like you're
- 00:52:54.720 just going to randomly find
- 00:52:56.400 dragons knocking the random dragons
- 00:52:58.079 thing that how how that happened
- 00:53:00.079 billing what people announce
- 00:53:03.760 is then what people expect even though
- 00:53:05.599 development can change
- 00:53:06.800 so much in just the course of a couple
- 00:53:08.480 of years but particularly on the time
- 00:53:10.160 scale we're talking
- 00:53:11.040 here like how do you manage expectations
- 00:53:14.880 i think i've found that the audience is
- 00:53:16.880 pretty as long as you tell them they're
- 00:53:18.160 pretty forgiving
- 00:53:19.040 right hey this changed um
- 00:53:22.960 i just don't want to string them along
- 00:53:24.559 too long you get kind of fatigued
- 00:53:28.559 so you have to balance that fatigue of
- 00:53:30.559 wanting something versus
- 00:53:32.240 you know consumer excitement i think
- 00:53:34.480 more than anything
- 00:53:35.440 also it takes time to be frank you know
- 00:53:37.920 preparing trailers and demos and assets
- 00:53:39.920 they take time away from development
- 00:53:42.160 and you know i can remember some games
- 00:53:44.720 we've done where
- 00:53:46.319 you're doing it multiple years and and
- 00:53:49.280 it's like you have to top yourself
- 00:53:51.680 so you do an initial demo and people get
- 00:53:54.160 excited but then time goes on so of
- 00:53:55.920 course they're not excited anymore so
- 00:53:57.119 you have to top
- 00:53:58.319 your previous demo and i'd rather just
- 00:54:02.079 spend all that time focusing on the game
- 00:54:04.640 and
- 00:54:05.119 and prepare kind of what one big demo
- 00:54:09.440 and you know i think once we did it with
- 00:54:11.520 fallout 4 where it was pretty cl
- 00:54:13.599 short um i've seen that happen more with
- 00:54:16.640 other games
- 00:54:17.359 with with with good success i don't
- 00:54:19.599 think their
- 00:54:20.720 impact in the market has been hurt in
- 00:54:23.280 any way that
- 00:54:24.160 that i've noticed and we are definitely
- 00:54:27.760 running
- 00:54:28.400 short and time so i'm going to start i'm
- 00:54:29.599 narrowed down to like i've got three
- 00:54:31.040 more things
- 00:54:31.520 to talk to you about um we spoke
- 00:54:34.880 recently and you told me uh or you
- 00:54:36.640 reminded me rather that skyrim turns 10
- 00:54:38.880 years old next year
- 00:54:40.480 um and as you were saying about how like
- 00:54:42.640 you you now have to think about like you
- 00:54:44.319 know when you design games you're
- 00:54:45.520 designing them
- 00:54:46.319 that may be played for a decade like
- 00:54:48.000 single-player games that may be played
- 00:54:49.920 by people for a decade either the same
- 00:54:52.240 people i have friends who are still
- 00:54:53.760 playing skyrim
- 00:54:54.880 or um or you know you can just different
- 00:54:57.040 people spread across
- 00:54:58.000 the time when it comes to starfield and
- 00:55:00.960 elder scrolls six like the the success
- 00:55:02.960 you've had with fallout and skyrim
- 00:55:04.960 um and fallout 76 like the lessons
- 00:55:07.440 you've learned
- 00:55:08.240 does that change how you design games
- 00:55:10.400 you're designing this
- 00:55:11.440 knowing that people are going to play it
- 00:55:13.920 for
- 00:55:14.720 you know a much longer period of time
- 00:55:16.880 with or without mods and obviously in
- 00:55:18.640 this age of
- 00:55:19.760 you know games being updated constantly
- 00:55:21.680 as a live set i'm not necessarily saying
- 00:55:23.119 either star field or i'll score six our
- 00:55:24.799 live service games
- 00:55:25.760 but like there is that expectation that
- 00:55:27.440 games are going to evolve over time
- 00:55:29.040 does that change how you start a project
- 00:55:31.440 or how you
- 00:55:32.079 how you tackle it in the early stages
- 00:55:35.359 it has it has post skyrim um
- 00:55:39.839 and we're always i don't know why i'm
- 00:55:42.319 always surprised at how much people play
- 00:55:43.839 it i think
- 00:55:44.640 you know you you go and see the stats
- 00:55:46.400 and say the median time
- 00:55:48.480 not average the median time is you know
- 00:55:50.839 170 hours
- 00:55:53.280 and given this how many people are
- 00:55:54.799 playing like wow um
- 00:55:57.680 so not only do we have a fortunate big
- 00:56:00.000 audience they just play
- 00:56:01.359 all the time i said i mean that in a
- 00:56:03.200 good way so that does
- 00:56:04.559 change where hey hey we're doing this
- 00:56:06.880 and this is how much content so you feel
- 00:56:08.559 good this is what someone's going to get
- 00:56:10.480 how does it compare to other things they
- 00:56:11.920 might spend their entertainment
- 00:56:13.760 dollars on but it becomes more than that
- 00:56:16.799 like they're investing
- 00:56:18.480 in this world their time has
- 00:56:21.920 real meaning to them and
- 00:56:25.520 it does to us as well so
- 00:56:29.359 how can it go on forever
- 00:56:34.000 and that's a very it's a very different
- 00:56:36.240 way of designing
- 00:56:37.200 when you use the word forever because
- 00:56:40.079 that's the word you have to use i can't
- 00:56:41.359 be like i designed this this will last
- 00:56:43.040 for three years
- 00:56:44.000 versus you know seven or ten um maybe
- 00:56:46.960 someone can do that i cannot
- 00:56:48.480 um so you have to think in terms of
- 00:56:51.520 forever and
- 00:56:54.559 there are there are ways to do that but
- 00:56:56.960 that are
- 00:56:58.240 they're easier than you think the easy
- 00:57:00.480 ones but they water down
- 00:57:02.960 the minute to minute and the hour to
- 00:57:04.880 hour
- 00:57:06.480 where you don't want the minutes and
- 00:57:07.839 minute and the hour to hour to feel like
- 00:57:10.160 a
- 00:57:10.839 grind and we've all experienced to do
- 00:57:14.000 that
- 00:57:15.200 so um
- 00:57:18.640 part of that for us too is the modding
- 00:57:22.000 community
- 00:57:24.839 that they've been with us for a long
- 00:57:27.520 time so it's not that we
- 00:57:28.960 rely on them per se to add content but
- 00:57:31.839 it's part of the vibe
- 00:57:33.520 of the game where from the get-go
- 00:57:38.000 it feels endless and then
- 00:57:41.839 it has systems that can systemically
- 00:57:45.280 be doing content and then as much as we
- 00:57:48.000 can we're still making stuff for skyrim
- 00:57:49.920 through creation club and some other
- 00:57:51.359 things with some people in the community
- 00:57:53.200 then you have mods
- 00:57:54.720 um and 76 obviously it's very systemic
- 00:57:57.760 system so the players are able to do a
- 00:57:59.599 lot we have a lot of cool stuff coming
- 00:58:01.200 and something we're still
- 00:58:02.559 you know updating on a monthly basis um
- 00:58:06.000 so we've been i also have been very very
- 00:58:07.839 fortunate there um
- 00:58:09.520 not not everybody is in the same way
- 00:58:11.359 where it
- 00:58:12.799 you have the ability to do it and you
- 00:58:14.559 have a fan base
- 00:58:16.160 um that is heavily involved in that as
- 00:58:19.200 well
- 00:58:21.280 and we spoke recently uh more in depth
- 00:58:23.839 about the microsoft acquisition
- 00:58:25.200 um and at the risk of a subtle blog you
- 00:58:27.280 can read that on gamesroot.biz
- 00:58:29.119 um but i would be remiss if i didn't
- 00:58:30.640 mention it here um let's talk about like
- 00:58:32.880 what was the impact of
- 00:58:34.400 the microsoft acquisition and i know
- 00:58:36.960 it's early days but like the impact on
- 00:58:38.400 your
- 00:58:39.359 your company your approach to
- 00:58:42.400 the you know the future the series
- 00:58:44.000 you're working on and your ability to
- 00:58:45.520 evolve them like what does this enable
- 00:58:48.160 sure and first of all we've worked with
- 00:58:50.240 them for a really long time
- 00:58:52.240 so it kind of was i think maybe a shock
- 00:58:55.440 to a lot of people but it's more natural
- 00:58:57.280 than
- 00:58:58.079 you might think internally particularly
- 00:59:00.079 for for my group our games every game
- 00:59:02.160 i've done
- 00:59:03.280 we've done you know morrowind was
- 00:59:06.559 helped us a lot and then oblivion and
- 00:59:08.319 skyrim and fallouts we've you know
- 00:59:10.240 every game i've done there's been some
- 00:59:12.720 co-development
- 00:59:13.680 and publishing arrangement that we've
- 00:59:16.319 had
- 00:59:17.119 and so we've had a lot of conversations
- 00:59:19.040 with them like hey what would the next
- 00:59:20.480 step
- 00:59:21.119 look like and feel
- 00:59:25.040 we've been in line with them for a long
- 00:59:26.880 time on you know
- 00:59:28.559 their view of where gaming can go
- 00:59:32.319 and been friends with phil for for a
- 00:59:34.720 very long time
- 00:59:35.760 and love the way they think about their
- 00:59:37.920 players um
- 00:59:39.200 the gaming community overall and
- 00:59:42.720 i guess i could boil it down and say
- 00:59:45.280 feel strongly
- 00:59:46.000 this is going to allow us to make better
- 00:59:48.720 games the best games
- 00:59:50.400 and reach even more people and that's
- 00:59:53.839 what's
- 00:59:54.720 at the end of the day most important to
- 00:59:56.160 us how does um
- 00:59:58.240 game pass factor into this because
- 00:59:59.920 obviously game pass
- 01:00:01.440 there's two things here like one is that
- 01:00:02.960 the game pass will enable people that
- 01:00:04.480 people that may not have spent fifty
- 01:00:06.000 sixty dollars on fallout within lashes
- 01:00:07.920 on game pass i'm subscribed i'll
- 01:00:09.119 download it i'm gonna give it a go i'll
- 01:00:10.400 be perfectly honest
- 01:00:11.440 i'm tempted to give fallout 76 ago now
- 01:00:13.520 it's on i am very much a single-player
- 01:00:15.280 gamer
- 01:00:15.760 multiplayer fallout didn't appeal now
- 01:00:17.520 it's on game i was like i'll give it a
- 01:00:18.720 go
- 01:00:19.280 and so there's that side of things but
- 01:00:20.799 there's also like you're designing
- 01:00:22.000 something that
- 01:00:23.440 because it's so easy for people to get
- 01:00:24.880 it if they're already subscribed it's so
- 01:00:26.240 easy for them to get in
- 01:00:27.280 but it's also really easy for them just
- 01:00:28.720 get out and delete like so you've
- 01:00:30.640 you've got to think about like a
- 01:00:31.680 redemption retention as it were
- 01:00:33.760 when it comes to designing future games
- 01:00:35.520 how does like a subscription service
- 01:00:37.599 kind of factor into that
- 01:00:39.920 i think when you're designing the game
- 01:00:42.319 it doesn't factor in
- 01:00:44.240 really at all per se you when any game
- 01:00:47.040 you make you want people to enjoy it and
- 01:00:48.559 want to come back to it and think about
- 01:00:49.920 it when they're when they're not playing
- 01:00:51.680 but the one thing game pass or
- 01:00:53.280 subscription services like it
- 01:00:55.280 um can bring you look at what it's
- 01:00:57.839 brought to
- 01:00:58.720 to television where certain types of
- 01:01:01.680 content
- 01:01:02.640 you know really high budget excellent
- 01:01:05.440 drama stuff you know left the theaters
- 01:01:07.280 that left regular television regular
- 01:01:08.880 television
- 01:01:09.520 went to lowest common denominator cheap
- 01:01:13.200 reality television show whatever there's
- 01:01:15.440 a lot of that
- 01:01:16.880 and so what it allows is when you're
- 01:01:18.720 when you're thinking about what you
- 01:01:20.079 could do
- 01:01:21.280 or what kind of games are you going to
- 01:01:22.880 green light
- 01:01:24.400 it opens up the palette dramatically
- 01:01:28.079 because you're not worried about someone
- 01:01:29.920 saying do i even want to take the time
- 01:01:32.240 to buy that
- 01:01:33.599 regardless of the price whether it's 60
- 01:01:35.680 or 30 or 20
- 01:01:37.520 um and just say oh i i heard that was
- 01:01:40.480 really good i'll oh i own it i'll just
- 01:01:42.319 try it
- 01:01:43.359 so it's really really good for
- 01:01:46.400 creators for you know i was worried
- 01:01:48.960 maybe four to five years ago
- 01:01:50.559 that certain types of games that we all
- 01:01:53.520 love
- 01:01:54.400 would kind of go away they would either
- 01:01:56.319 be like match three
- 01:01:58.000 free to play stuff or sixty dollar
- 01:02:02.160 kind of big budget and then nothing else
- 01:02:05.359 has a
- 01:02:06.720 an avenue to be successful and with
- 01:02:09.520 something like this
- 01:02:11.119 i think it it opens it up dramatically
- 01:02:14.400 and lets people exp it's already
- 01:02:16.079 happened to me i'm sure it's happened to
- 01:02:17.200 you like where you have game pass and
- 01:02:18.640 you say oh i own that i haven't
- 01:02:19.920 experienced that i want it
- 01:02:21.200 i'm going to try that i'm going to try
- 01:02:22.480 this or you hear your outer wilds
- 01:02:25.039 you know a game that i probably wouldn't
- 01:02:26.960 have played if it wasn't for
- 01:02:28.960 for game pass um so i think it's a
- 01:02:33.039 a hugely positive thing for everybody
- 01:02:37.039 but it's still not the only thing you'll
- 01:02:38.480 still have your big ticket things that
- 01:02:40.319 are going to come out
- 01:02:41.520 and they're they're going to be 60 games
- 01:02:43.440 you're still going to have games that
- 01:02:44.640 are going to be
- 01:02:45.599 free to play across everything that
- 01:02:47.520 monetize
- 01:02:48.960 again like television whether it's ad
- 01:02:50.880 revenue or some other things
- 01:02:54.160 last question and thank you so much for
- 01:02:55.680 your time today and last question
- 01:02:58.319 kind of going very right back to the
- 01:02:59.680 start like what advice would you give to
- 01:03:01.920 aspiring designers
- 01:03:03.039 um and to your younger self now i mean
- 01:03:05.039 this in two contexts
- 01:03:06.400 what would you what advice would you
- 01:03:07.599 give to your younger self way back in
- 01:03:09.760 the 90s before he started like what
- 01:03:11.440 things would he need to
- 01:03:12.480 know or think about and then if your
- 01:03:14.319 younger self was starting now
- 01:03:16.160 and we're making a terminator game now
- 01:03:18.720 or whatever it might be
- 01:03:20.240 what advice do you have for people who
- 01:03:22.400 want to be the next todd howard
- 01:03:25.599 when your parents say put the video
- 01:03:27.599 games down that'll do nothing for you
- 01:03:29.359 just say
- 01:03:30.079 you wait
- 01:03:33.200 um i think the main advice
- 01:03:37.599 and we we've said this for a while is
- 01:03:40.559 great games are played
- 01:03:42.079 not made don't don't think you have the
- 01:03:43.520 most brilliant idea you have to make
- 01:03:45.119 stuff
- 01:03:46.319 and um not be so beholden to i have the
- 01:03:51.200 best idea it's
- 01:03:52.799 it's a team effort right um
- 01:03:55.839 i work i've worked with a lot of the
- 01:03:57.280 same people for 20 years
- 01:03:59.520 and we're pretty open to criticism from
- 01:04:03.280 each other and our fans and getting
- 01:04:04.799 better at it but
- 01:04:05.680 you just need to make stuff see how it
- 01:04:08.240 feels to you
- 01:04:09.200 how it feels to other people and you're
- 01:04:11.440 going to have a lot of failures
- 01:04:13.839 some of those will be public and some of
- 01:04:15.200 those will be private failures before
- 01:04:16.720 they
- 01:04:17.280 they see it and i think today
- 01:04:20.319 if you look at that advice if you were
- 01:04:23.039 said you were saying you know
- 01:04:24.799 how does it translate today people's
- 01:04:27.200 ability to make games and put them out
- 01:04:29.599 and have people touch them
- 01:04:31.200 is unlike at any other point in history
- 01:04:34.559 so when people usually come to us who
- 01:04:36.319 say well go ahead and make something put
- 01:04:37.920 it up
- 01:04:38.640 let people play it you'll you'll learn
- 01:04:40.799 more
- 01:04:41.680 um and enjoy the process along the way
- 01:04:46.559 that is all we have time for that's
- 01:04:48.240 probably more than we had time for
- 01:04:49.599 um todd thank you so much for your time
- 01:04:52.160 and
- 01:04:52.640 congratulations again on your develop
- 01:04:54.079 star award
- 01:04:55.760 thank you very much thank you all for
- 01:04:58.240 joining us uh if you're tuning in late
- 01:04:59.920 or missed something
- 01:05:00.799 and if i've done my job right i have
- 01:05:02.559 write up should be going live on games
- 01:05:04.319 and studio biz any second
- 01:05:06.000 now ish you can see and hear more from
- 01:05:08.960 todd
- 01:05:09.440 when you watch the develop star awards
- 01:05:10.880 ceremony at 5 pm uk time on wednesday
- 01:05:13.520 and you can find out more about the rest
- 01:05:14.799 of the great talks happening this week
- 01:05:16.160 at developconference.com
- 01:05:25.680 you
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