While Bethesda may have gone through some tough times with recent layoffs, game director Todd Howard has said that he has no plans to retire anytime soon. In an interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, which you can check out below, Howard spoke about his future in the industry and even admitted that he thought about retirement a few years ago.
“The truth is, there was a period of time a while back where I pondered, what does it look like? Not is it imminent, but what does it look like? And I no longer do.” Howard said that the things he is working on at Bethesda serve as motivation for him to continue doing what he has been doing, and these days, retirement is far from his mind.
“I just love it. I love working with these people. It’s really not something I think about. Some folks in our industry, that are a little older than me, they’re just making great stuff too. So, it’s not something I’ve been thinking about.”
In another recent interview, Howard also spoke about the recent layoffs at Bethesda, saying that it was a “really tough” experience for the company as well as his colleagues. “This is Bethesda’s 40th anniversary, and there have been periods where we’ve gone through changes,” he said. “We’re going through a change so that we focus best on the franchises and what we need to do to deliver for everybody.”
As for the future, Howard is currently heading up development on The Elder Scrolls 6, which was announced all the way back in 2018. While Bethesda released Starfield in the years since, work has been focused almost entirely on the fantasy RPG, with much of the studio working on it.
Despite this, however, recent reports have indicated that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still at least two more years away. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise since the fantasy RPG is likely going to be quite massive in scope. Xbox CCO Matt Booty had spoken about the project back in June, when he said that it was “coming along well”.
“I would say one of the more challenging balancing acts of someone in a job like mine is balancing that you want to go show the world all the cool stuff you’re working on, and you want to get them excited early, but we also know that we want to wait till the right moment,” he said.
“And when you decide to show it, you want it to be the best you’ve got. And also that when you show the game, you’re also giving them a promise of, hey, it’s coming soon. So I can tell you, having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd and seen Elder Scrolls playing, it looks amazing, and it’s coming along well. And we’ll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time.”
Howard likely also has his hands full with the new Fallout projects that were unveiled, which include remasters of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, a new Fallout game being made alongside Obsidian Entertainment, and eventually, Fallout 5.
