We felt the company was going to go out of business, so when we had a chance to make Morrowind, we were like 'What's the worst that's going to happen?' We took a few more risks and if it hadn't worked out, I don't know that we'd be here. 'We'd made some bad games, we made some mistakes and the development team probably went down to six people,' he says. But it was Morrowind that was 'the beginning of the Bethesda people know today' - and essentially saved the company. He points to old reviews for Arena and Daggerfall, which would praise the sense of freedom and the breadth of the game world - sentiments Bethesda continues to target with each new Elder Scrolls. 'Even though the scale has increased, what we were doing in comparison to other games really hasn't.' 'Certain things can seem primitive through the lens of time and technology but we were doing similar things to what we're doing now, believe it or not,' he says.

While neither title seems as accomplished as the likes of Morrowind or Skyrim by today's standards, Todd says they were ambitious for their time and started an ethos he and his team still follow today. While Arena established the world of Tamriel, Daggerfall introduced the 'use skills to improve them' progression system. He then moved onto Daggerfall full-time, where the team refined the Elder Scrolls formula still used today. Howard's first experience with Bethesda's flagship series was assisting with the CD-ROM version of its first entry Arena, having already launched on floppy disks (remember those?). We already spoke to him last week, where he told us the next generation is all about access, and now we present the highlights from today's keynote. Today's keynote fireside chat as part of the Develop:Brighton online conference - hosted by myself on behalf of - explored Howard's career and the challenges of the games he has worked on. The story of Todd Howard is largely the story of Bethesda - if not the Softworks publishing side, then certainly the Game Studios development team behind the company's biggest games.

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