Former Elder Scrolls dev says Todd Howard would sometimes work on “two dozen” projects at once and is the face of Bethesda partly because he’s “incredibly photogenic”
Former Bethesda designer Bruce Nesmith says Todd Howard is an absolute workhorse who just happens to be “incredibly photogenic,” which is why he’s the face of the whole company these days.
In an incredibly insightful interview with Kiwi Talkz, Nesmith spoke at length about his decades of experience at Bethesda as well as his relationship with Howard. At one point, he got onto the topic of Howard’s inarguable status as the face of Bethesda.
“[Bethesda head of publishing] Pete Hines has made no bones about the fact that, when he took over the marketing, Bethesda needed a face, they needed a person for the audience, for the customers, the fans, to identify. Having an entire crew doesn’t work well. You need someone who is, ’that’s the guy’ and Todd made a very natural choice for that. He’s incredibly photogenic, he’s amazing in person and in interviews and on stage, and he was the boss of the dev team at that time, so he becomes that role.”
Nesmith also mentioned that near the end of his tenure Howard would have somewhere around two dozens of projects on his plate at once.
“Some small, some large, there’s mobile games,” Nesmith said. “There’s remote things that he just has to take a look at, in addition to a variety of larger projects. So, that’s a lot.”
Nowadays, we know Howard is involved in some capacity with a bunch of different projects, including (but not limited to) Elder Scrolls 6, Starfield, Fallout 76, the Fallout TV show, and Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game.
The whole interview is worth a watch if you haven’t already, but I’ll leave you with one very comforting tidbit from later in the interview, in which Nesmith predicts Howard isn’t leaving Bethesda “any time soon.”
“He’s still fairly young and quite vital, and I think we have many, many more years before we have to worry ourselves with Todd Howard not making games,” Nesmith said.