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24 years at Bethesda taught former head of publishing Pete Hines what a great game looks like and who's capable of making one. According to the now-retired executive, it's Todd Howard.
Bethesda's current director and lord of its brand-defining franchises – Howard led Skyrim in 2011, directed Fallout 4 in 2015, among other accolades to chisel on a stone tablet – is not amazing at the technical aspects of his job. Hines tells Kirk McKeand in a new installment of the journalist's Firezide Chat series matter-of-factly, "He is not the best programmer in the world. He might not be the best designer in the world. But there is nobody that is better at all of that shit than Todd, in my opinion."
"I mean, I'm biased," Hines admits, "he's one of my best friends." Regardless, he thinks Howard is a natural at understanding "how all of that shit fits together and impacts each other in a way I just haven't quite seen the same anywhere else in the industry, internal or external."
And, you know, it's hard to argue with him. When it comes to making mass appeal, player-first games that lend themselves to Amazon TV adaptations – Amazon's cultural reputation makes that sound bad, but I'm stating it as a very lucrative fact – Todd Howard is the undefeated champ.
There are plenty of other studio leaders who have been important in the industry for as long as Howard, but, in comparison, Hideo Kojima makes games for a more idiosyncratic crowd. FromSoftware's Hidetaka Miyazaki puts masochists in medieval torture devices, Yoko Taro probably puts himself in medieval torture devices, and their fanbases are all a more discerning, limited crew. But Howard lets anyone make anything of his fantasy realms, post-apocalyptic waste, trips to outer space, and no one else has been quite as successful at minimizing their role as an author that way.
"Look around the industry. Who else?" Hines says. There's no one.
