Todd Howard is responsible for Starfield at Bethesda. In an interview, he revealed what he sacrifices for more player freedom.
Who is it about?
- Todd Howard leads Bethesda together with studio director Ashley Cheng
- Howard is the Game Director and Executive Producer for Bethesda Game Studios and is responsible for Starfield
- Howard is also responsible for the development of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series at Bethesda
- Additionally, he is also the only person allowed to speak about new information on Starfield at Bethesda
What did Howard say about the graphics quality? In November 2022, Todd Howard was a guest on Lex Fridman’s podcast and answered some questions about Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, and graphics in video games.
Lex asked Howard during the conversation: “How big is the compromise between the realism of the graphics and the story?” and added, “Is there a compromise in the [player] experience, the feel of the game regarding realism and story?”
Howard replied that they want to give players as much freedom as possible and sacrifice graphic quality and frame rate (frames per second) for it:
Normally we start by giving the player as much freedom as possible and as many things to do as possible, and for that, we sacrifice some graphical quality and some speed.
Todd Howard, Game Director and Executive Producer for Bethesda Game Studios, via YouTube
Then Howard elaborated further: “We have no problem with 30 frames per second as long as it looks really good and the simulation runs and all those things. So we sacrifice some of that quality for the player experience.”
However, Howard also noted that the ratio between the graphics of a game and the player experience has no impact on the workforce.
What does this mean in practice? What Howard already said in November 2022 during his conversation with Lex Fridman can be well transferred to today’s state of knowledge. Since June 2023, it is known that the Xbox version of Starfield will be limited to a maximum of 30 FPS (frames per second) (via GameStar).
The limited frame rate of Starfield on console caused some fans of the game to become upset, but in a game the size of Starfield, the limit helps to ensure a seamless appearance.
If 30 FPS is still not enough for you, a survival game in space might be a better fit for you:
