Starfield “really hurt” without Todd Howard says Skyrim lead

Skyrim’s co-lead designer and former Elder Scrolls loremaster, Kurt Kuhlmann, believes Todd Howard’s busy schedule and subsequent lack of involvement with sci-fi RPG Starfield meant the title didn’t “fully cohere as a game”.

Even though Howard was the creative director, Bethesda’s growth and Howard’s role there meant that he was often “pulled away” from the project. According to Kuhlmann, this was at odds with how Bethesda used to handle projects and is part of the reason they ultimately left the company in 2023. 

“I was working directly on the game [Skyrim], and I was a lead,” explains Kuhlmann (via PCGamer). “That was how all the leads worked then, and so I was directly working with all the people, all the quest designers, myself.” 

However, a shift in dynamics occurred during Starfield’s development, one that a former Bethesda developer cites as resulting in a lack of freedom. “Todd [Howard] was still the creative director,” Kuhlmann continues, “and he had the leads, but the leads now included studio heads and producers and were from multiple studios.”

A loss of cohesion

Although Kuhlmann describes Howard as a “very good project lead”, being needed across multiple branches of Bethesda meant that Howard had less time to lead the project, resulting in miscommunication and a lack of clarity. 

“Decisions weren’t being made maybe when they needed to be because maybe they needed Todd to make a decision as a tiebreaker, and he was busy,” they add, “and when he would get pulled away from the game that would really hurt the game.”

The result was an experience Kuhlmann says “wasn’t the best”, an apt if mild description. In many ways, developers are damned by the internet even if the game is successful. 

Hopefully, Bethesda has learnt its lesson and will save The Elder Scrolls 6 from a similarly divisive fate. 

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Emma Flint