Todd Howard

Todd Howard was born in 1971 and grew up in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania; Wizardry and Ultima III, which he played as a boy, made him resolve to make games himself. He has a brother one year older who later became Disney’s director of creative affairs and co-produced Bambi II.⁠[1]

He graduated from the College of William & Mary in the class of 1993.⁠[2]

In his final college year he walked into Bethesda Softworks asking for a job and was turned down; after graduating he made small games at a little software company in Yorktown, Virginia, and pitched himself again at the CES trade show.⁠[1]

He began his video game career at Bethesda Softworks in 1994; his first game development credit was 1995’s The Terminator: Future Shock.⁠[3]

Future Shock was the first mouse-look 3D shooter on PC.⁠[4]

Starting with the second installment, Daggerfall, in 1996, he worked on every Elder Scrolls game except the original.⁠[5]

He was producer and designer of The Terminator: SkyNET (1996) and project leader and designer of The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (1998).⁠[6]

He was project leader and designer of 2002’s The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the game that began pushing world creation and player modding.⁠[3]

Looking back on his career, he said Morrowind’s success, particularly on Xbox, brought Bethesda into the spotlight: “We are all here today because this game was a huge success.”⁠[7]

In 2019 PolygonPolygonPolygon (formerly Matic Network) is a blockchain network and project founded in 2017, originally to scale Ethereum, and driven by organizations including Polygon Labs and the Polygon Foundation; its native token was upgraded from MATIC to POL, and in recent years it has shifted toward stablecoin payments infrastructure.Open the full entry published an oral history of Morrowind’s development, interviewing Howard and other developers; it covered his differences with designer Ken Rolston as well as layoffs and tensions during development.⁠[8]

He became one of the rare few game designers to develop three consecutive Game of the Year titles (Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim).⁠[9]

He was game director of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, released in 2011; the game took about 100 people roughly five years to make, won more than 250 Game of the Year awards, and had sold more than 10 million copies as of December 2016.⁠[10]

In 2012 he spoke about making Skyrim at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, arguing that game design must be approached with discipline and advising developers to find what players do a lot and “Make that fun and entertaining.”⁠[10]

That year and again in 2016 the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences named him Best Game Director; his other honors include Germany’s Lara of Honor.⁠[6]

He led the team behind Fallout 4, released in 2015, and directed Bethesda’s first mobile game, the spin-off Fallout Shelter.⁠[4]

The 16th Game Developers Choice Awards, held in San Francisco on March 16, 2016, gave him the Lifetime Achievement Award; the organizers said he had created some of the industry’s most successful games by pioneering open-world gameplay.⁠[9]

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences named him its 22nd Hall of Fame recipient; the award was presented on February 23, 2017, at the 20th D.I.C.E. Awards in Las Vegas by his longtime colleague Pete Hines.⁠[11]

In 2018 Bethesda first announced the new science-fiction game Starfield at its E3 press event.⁠[12]

Amazon Studios announced a Fallout TV series to be developed by Kilter Films, the company of Westworld creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, with Howard and Bethesda Softworks’ James Altman as executive producers. He said it was clear from his first conversation with the pair that “they and the team at Kilter were the ones to do it right.”⁠[13]

Lucasfilm Games and Bethesda announced a new Indiana Jones game developed by MachineGames and executive produced by Howard. Bethesda executive Pete Hines said he was a lifelong Indy fan who had been trying for over a decade to make the game.⁠[14]

On March 9, 2021, MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry announced it had completed its acquisition of ZeniMax Media, Bethesda’s parent company, bringing Bethesda Game Studios and other studios into Xbox.⁠[15]

In a livestreamed conversation between Xbox and Bethesda executives that followed, he addressed Fallout 76’s 2018 launch, saying “there was very little we didn't screw up honestly” and acknowledging that “we let a lot of people down.”⁠[16]

He appeared on episode 342 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, titled “Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield,” discussing topics including NPCs, Daggerfall and Arena, open-world design, Starfield, Xbox, the Fallout TV show, and the Indiana Jones game.⁠[17]

On March 8, 2023, Bethesda announced in a video featuring a message from Howard that Starfield would be released on September 6, 2023, for Xbox Series X/S and PC. “We have poured ourselves into this game,” he said in the video.⁠[12]

Prime Video announced that the Fallout series would premiere on April 12, 2024, starring Walton Goggins and others; Howard served as an executive producer for Bethesda Game Studios.⁠[18]

Lucasfilm Games executive producer Craig Derrick said Howard and the MachineGames team built the story around a real-world mystery: a number of ancient sites around the world align on a perfect circle. The game was scheduled to launch on December 9, 2024, on Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass.⁠[19]

In November 2025 he said The Elder Scrolls VI was still a long way off and asked fans for patience; he also said hundreds of people were working on Fallout projects.⁠[20]

In July 2026, after large-scale Xbox layoffs, he published a note saying The Elder Scrolls VI was the studio’s primary development focus, with most of the team working on it, and that Skyrim had sold more than 65 million copies. He said The Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5 were being built on Creation Engine 3, a shared technology platform developed since Starfield’s launch.⁠[21]

Bethesda also confirmed that Fallout 5 was in pre-production and that Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas would be remade. He recalled insisting since Morrowind that the editor ship with the game, and said the creator community had kept Skyrim alive after fifteen years.⁠[22]

As of October 2026 he was studio head and creative director of Bethesda Game Studios and was directing The Elder Scrolls VI; he also served on the boards of the Make-A-Wish Foundation Mid-Atlantic, the William & Mary Foundation, the University of Notre Dame Athletics Council, and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.⁠[2]

Bethesda Game Studios: Official website: https://bethesdagamestudios.com (opens in a new window)⁠[17]

Bethesda Softworks: Official website: https://bethesda.net (opens in a new window)⁠[17]