Bethesda’s Todd Howard is no ordinary game developer. Having risen to the top of the ranks at Bethesda Game Studios over his 32-year tenure, he’s a household name even among people who don’t write about video games for a living.
He’s been instrumental in the development of some of the most beloved games of all time, including The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4, and so you’d assume he’s probably made some really brilliant executive decisions over the course of his long career. And yet still, he’s bound to be wrong about stuff occasionally too, and according to a longtime friend and former colleague of his, everyone he works with is too afraid to tell him that.
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Because Todd Howard is basically a celebrity game dev who is well respected, he unfortunately has a problem with “yes men” at times.His friend and former colleague Dennis Mejillones puts it well “A lot of people are afraid to say no to Todd and that hurt him.” As more of the… pic.twitter.com/rjoJl3PfjuApril 2, 2026
This is an interesting insight even in isolation, but when presented in contrast with Skyrim co-lead designer Kurt Kuhlmann’s recent assertion that Starfield’s main problem was Howard being “pulled away” too often during development, a fascinating contrast emerges. On one hand, Mejillones is arguing that Howard needs to be challenged more, but on the other Kuhlmann seems to think Todd Howard games need more Todd Howard in their DNA. It should be interesting to see how that push-and-pull shakes out when The Elder Scrolls 6 launches hopefully sometime while we’re all still alive.
Everything Todd Howard told us about The Elder Scrolls 6, Creation Engine 3, and the future of Bethesda RPGs: “Everyone at the studio has a responsibility to make sure our games are as good as they can be”
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