Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Todd Howard Returns! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Go to Boot.dev and use code KINDAFUNNY to get 25% off your entire first year on the annual plan. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/kindafunny Thank you for the support! Run of Show - - Start - What’s Up with STARFIELD?! - The Elder Scrolls VI - Organizing a Big Studio with a Big Project - Fallout 76 - Fallout Season 2 - Ads - SuperChats - Fallout Games - Shadow Drops & Leaks - DICE - AI - Vince Zampella - Todd’s Career - Speed Round Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Go to boot.dev and use code Kind of Funny to get 25% off your entire first year on the annual plan. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash Kind of Funny. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, February 18th, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside studio head and creative director, Bethesda. Todd Howard, hello, Todd. Hey, how you doing? Great to see you.

It's good to see you after you dodged me at dice. I did. You know, that is completely my fault. We always catch up at dice. An annual tradition to get a cup of coffee at dice. An annual tradition. And you left me hanging because I didn't hit you up until the week of. That was my mistake.

That was my problem. I think it was better to do it this way in front of everybody else. In front of everyone. Yeah, I saw the chat earlier. Was like, is this live? This is live. Super chatting on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Ask Todd your questions.

Of course, remember, we couldn't do this without our Patreon producers at patreon. dot com slash kind of funny. Carl Jacobsomega Buster Delaney the Somp Twining. Thank you so much. Todd, how are you? I'm awesome. It was a great dice. It's been a crazy year for us.

So just a few things going on. Just wrap the fallout season two. We're writing season three. We had Ablivian remastered the past year. all the Fallout 76 updates. We're working on Starfield content. And of course, the big games we have coming in the future,

Indiana Jones. So, you know, this or that. Just a few, yeah, just a little things. You start off,

of course, walking out on a Nintendo partner direct this time to announce all those games coming to the Nintendo Switch 2. No big deal there. And then you jump into dice and you get going.

But yeah, I think that's the thing. It's so great for you to come back. Thank you so much. Of course, you what, April 29th. This is the show I listened to.

I tell you that. I know, you do. Like, we use disc, Everybody know you use Discord for this? They do, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I have Discord on my work computer here at the office.

It's the only thing I've ever used it for. Every time I boot my computer, Discord comes up, and I'm like, I don't think I'm on kind of fine. You can uninstall, yeah. You haven't been on since April 29, 2024. Well, now I have a reason. Well, you see, usually when I call people on the show, I just call them on their phone. So I'll just start doing that for you.

You can do that. You can do that. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. I don't want to bug you all the time. I appreciate you. Well, that's the thing. You know, once the number's given out, you understand it's a red light. Yeah, here we go.

It's go time. Anytime you get a phone call from me in the middle of the day, you're going to be live on the show. But yeah, I have so many questions to ask you on the record, I guess, which is why it makes more sense for you to return. Again, you ushered in Kind of Funny Gamescast as a daily show on April 29th, 2024. I can't thank you enough for that. We have been steamrolling ever since with daily content, the number one and number two video game daily podcast in the world, all because of you, Todd Howard. But I digress. I think you had someone doing it.

Of course, let's get the topic of the show. Todd's, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tats. It's Todd Howard. So many places to start, Todd. And I think the only logical place to start is, of course, Starfield. I know some, oh, Elder Scroll 6, when the Fallout remastered rumors, all the, we'll get to that. All right, we'll get to that, everybody watching live and watching later. When you get a show, you're allowed to ask about your favorite game. because I was offended this morning when I went to the no-soidium Starfield subreddit,

which I go to frequently, if not daily. I'm there lurking and looking. Agent Shane said, of course, watch him talk about everything but Starfield. And then, of course, on that thread, I said, I am one of you. I will get a Starfield answers or else. Todd, what the hell is going on with Starfield? Because even before I let you answer, I have never had a more whack-a-dod do preview than what you all let me do for Starfield's upcoming content where you let me go

to a thing with a bunch of other creators and we were told you're not allowed to report on this or talk about this but you're allowed to say you saw it and so now for like the last four months every so often one of them says that people flip out thinking Starfield 2.0 what's going where where are we what what what's going on starfield now first of all uh thanks to the Reddit comment there I'm a big Redder. So I do read Reddit a lot. It's my sort of favorite signal to noise, you know, platform as it comes to that stuff. And yeah, look, obviously we've been working on a lot of Starfield content. We haven't talked about it yet because, you know, the end of last year, too, is particularly, for us, we sort of period of time where we focus on IPs or franchises and

fallout really obviously dominated the fall and a little bit in it early this year. You know, you've seen it. And I can tell everybody we're going to be talking about it, you know, really soon. We're moving into a phase where we're ready to talk about Starfield. Okay. And really show that in the right way and what's coming to the game. We've been doing a lot of work that we like a lot. It is not Starfield 2.0. You know, I've seen some of that. So I don't, you know, for expectation setting, I think it's the kind of thing where if you love Starfield, we think you're going to love this. It's, you know, updates and things that, you know, change, change the game, you know, not in an isolated way, but sort of, you know, meta.

Sure. Using outer space and things in ways that we haven't. But look, if Starfield's something that, you know, didn't connect with you right away, or you bounced off it or found it boring in places, I don't think this is going to change that fundamentally. But if you're someone who loves Starfield, like you, Greg, we think it's really, really, we're really happy with it. We like it a lot.

And we have such a big audience. on the game. It's really like a game pass hours beast in terms of Starfield for us. And we're really, really, you know, happy with the results and our audience is great. Is that imminent? You're preparing. You're getting ready to talk. How close to talking are we? It's, it's soonish. It is, it is soonish. I don't, I don't want to spoil the day, but it's, it's coming soon. Yeah. And then I guess the next one for you to dodge is, do you feel like, is this going to put a bow on Starfield for you, for the team to then move on to all the other projects you're working on?

Yeah, look, we do have a lot of projects. And so I think balancing that with the size of our studio, we do have a lot of development partners also, but still we're relatively small, just over 500 people across everything. Super tiny. That's the trick, that's the trip, well, across Fallout. I know, I know.

And Starfield and the Elder Scrolls work. I think balancing that, you know, what's important for a period of time, that's kind of a trick that we find ourselves in a lot. But no, we're doing more Starfield stuff coming up. We've been laying that out. And so it's something we see continuing, you know, for a while. We also have all the creators.

They're doing amazing stuff in the game. So I think working with them also kind of keeps really good content coming into the game. And we're going to be a part of that as well. Yeah, I think that's something that, you know, for me is as a Starfield sicko, as I keep saying. so impressive. As I think as much as I have loved fallout in the past, I was always on consoles. So the modding community,

the creation community was it wasn't my thing for a long time. I know eventually, obviously, it came to consoles. But with Starfield having it out the gate so quickly, I've been shocked to see how much that has kept the game alive for me of dropping in for these big additions, whether they be from Bethesda proper, or whether they be from the community.

And even going as far as what? It was two months ago last month? I think it was last month, January, right? Times of flat circle, blur right now where they did StarCon. Did you see this where they did like a little Starfield digital convention? It was on Zoom all day. People came together to talk about their creations and what they were doing and where they were going. I loved it. I had such a great time. Yeah, look, our community there is amazing. Our creators and modders who have been with us for so long, we love it.

And I honestly still think it's early days for us. We're always trying to find new ways to support that community. I think the content is, you know, absolutely incredible. But we have a ways to go in terms of making it easier for them, putting it in front of everybody, saying, hey, try this out. You know, with our older games and creations of Fallout 4, you know, we still have issues when we update the game. It breaks mods. And so we see all that.

We still feel like even though we've been doing this type of thing for several decades, that we're still, well, still early in what that looks like for everybody. So take me from that last statement to the general future of Bethesda Games, right? you know, you make this game, you make this type of game, you make this thing. Do you see that changing? I think the way you listen to this show, the way we talk about Bethesda games, open world RPGs, RPGs in general, you know, expanded out for the video game world. You hear so much about, well, the Bethesda engine and then me talking about like,

yo, Bethesda makes Bethesda games. And so it's silly for us to show up and think you're going to get something different. But as we see the success of Baldersgate 3 and all the choices and consequences there, as we see people continue to push it and get nerdy with it. I think of the Outer Worlds too and the way they did perks and stuff like this. Like, do you guys batten down the hatches and you're committed to your engine and this is what we're making

and this is how it's going to be? Or are you letting things come in, influence? And do you see that changing as everything evolves? I think we've, if you look at our games, we've sort of always evolved. We do have a certain style that we like and our fans like that we want to get better and better at. I think in some ways,

in many ways, Fallout 76 and Starfield or a little bit of a creative detour from kind of that classic Elder Scrolls fallout, you know, a Skyrim or a Fallout 3 or Fallout 4, oblivion where you're exploring a world in a certain way. And, you know, as we come back to Elder Scroll 6 that we're doing now, you know,

we're coming back to that kind of classic style that we've missed, that we know really, really well. You talked about, you know, tech and things like that. We spent the last, you know, several years bringing Creation Engine 2, which powers Starfield up to Creation Engine 3. That's going to power Elder Scroll 6 and beyond. And, you know, obviously we do all the rendering things. We're really happy with the new stuff that we're doing, but also kind of world systems loading, how we bring things into the world, how we get that detail close to the camera kind of immediately. And so, but it's still, you know,

We have a style of game that we really, really like that I think people expect from us. Sure. And there's a lot of innovation to be done there still so that when you step into a world, you feel like you're experiencing it really for the first time, a game like that. And I think, you know, we're happy with where it's headed right now. That's what I could say. Okay, okay. In that, I mean, you brought it up.

You said the Elder Scroll 6. So, I mean, like, how is that going? Because it's been, let me check my calendar, seven years. Since the announcement. Uh-huh. Yeah, I mean, look, I think everybody knows that why we announced it that way, then, you know, it's not my preference. My preference is always, you hear nothing.

And then one day the game is out. Like, there's an announcement and the game is out. Like, that's my perfect scenario that, you know, that can't always be the case. And at that time, he wanted to signal to people. because it's the obvious question when you announce a 76, are you still going to be doing a single-Berg? Sure.

You announce a Starfield. The next question is, what about Elder Scroll 6? So that really was, and even then, look, we know where the game is set. We know some things we're doing. Just, hey, this is going to be happening.

And so, look, like I said, it's going well. We're happy with it. It's going to be a while yet. We're happy with where we push the technology and how the game is coming together. You know, we're able to play it. We've just passed a,

we're about to pass a big, milestone internally. The majority of the studio is on the game and some of our partners. So, you know, it's weird. I, like, I'm not here to, like, sell either talk. It's really a catch-up conversation, so I feel bad because people want information. I appreciate that. But I'm much more, you know, I like to think long-term about when you really see the game and hear about it, you know, focusing on that moment and kind of, you know, not today or the, you you know, the time in between. Well, I assure you,

I doubt very few people showed up to the kind of funny games cast expecting you to show footage today. So don't worry, you're in a safe spot. You just did, there you go, that was it. Talk to me a little inside the studio game dev stuff, jumping off of the Elder Scroll 6, but not obviously giving me stuff you're not going to give me. You talk about the majority of the studio being on it, right?

So that's 250 plus people who are working on that. How do you? you keep that straight? You know what I mean? How do you as a studio, as a team, as multiple teams, as multiple project managers, bosses, organize something of that magnitude? Yeah, it's tricky, but we do have production directors on every project and creative directors. I tend to spend most of my time in the new things. So like most of my time is on Elder Scroll 6. Sure. And then, you know, the other projects, we have great, great leaders sort of across the studio. You think about Elder Scrolls, you know, the majority of the folks that made Skyrim are actually still here.

And the studio is an amazing place where we have people that have been here decades, but we also have a lot of new talent that's coming to the studio with skills they've, you know, picked up at other studios or they've grew up as fans of our games and now they're professionals. So I think the studio makeup is in a really, really great spot. But yeah, it's a juggling act. You know, Fallout 76 is so popular. Yeah. We have another big season coming out. It's like our 65th or 66th update to that game. I did not homework. 66th.

Don't worry, of course. Season 24, the backwoods coming out March 3rd. I'm prepped. I'm ready. Bigfoot. There you go. All right, we'll plug that. We'll get there.

But look, when you have a big live service game in that way, it does take a lot of time and headspace from the studio. But great team on that, great partners on that. So that's in a good spot. Yeah, it's tricky. but we've gotten better at her over the years and overlapping our projects and bringing, you know, key folks onto projects that really need them at the right time. You jump off of there, that's 76 conversation.

I think that's interesting since we last talked, right? And obviously, we've all been through the journey of Bethesda in general. Like you said, you announced 76, but you also announced Elder Scroll 6. So you say, we're still doing what we know. Now that we're so far on the 76 train and obviously we've been up down around curves all through the blah blah. Do you and does the studio feel like, hey, this is such a great addition to the portfolio? Because I think about when, you know, the jumping platform allegiances here, Nottie Dog pulled the plug on the Last of Us multiplayer thing. And their statement was like,

hey, we started down this train of making a multiplayer game. We realized it was going to take us so far away from making the single player games were known for. It seems like for all the bumps along the way, you guys have found a way to do that, but maintain and still make the solo stuff, make this thing and try to satisfy two very different audiences. Yeah, look, it was incredibly difficult. It was difficult to get it to launch, and it didn't launch great. And then it was even harder to sort of, you know, pull it out of that. And then when it starts getting really popular again, maintain it.

we're really fortunate. Look, the community around that game is incredible. And, you know, there were so many people that wanted to play a game like that. Granted, not every Fallout fan. We realized that, given the history of it and the single player nature of it. But so many people wanted to play a game like that, they kind of, you know, stuck with us. And, you know, in many respects, it's the game that we've done I'm the most proud of. because it's so hard to do and then maintain as a relevant, a relevant game.

And I think if you look across the industry, the amount of games like it that there have been or come and gone. And here's 76 still there with big numbers and doing well and being relevant. And it's a lot of energy in the studio. Look, people love it. You know, the team on it led by John Rush. They just do a fantastic, fantastic job. And you see the, you know, I get to see the roadmap that's planned for the game. And it gets even better.

So we love it. Our community loves it. And obviously, as you have these fallout moments with the TV show, it gives us an avenue to be updating and adding new things. The ghoul comes into Burning Springs and et cetera. So just a vibrant community and something where it's great to have that community touchpoint. whereas we're doing a single player game you don't have it as much you're kind of doing it outside the game

obviously we have mods and creations but you know not quite the same as as a game like Fallout 76 no for sure I think that's what's been so interesting you know I see Mr. Hawks one of our kind of funny best friends but also a Fallout 76 super fan who podcasts about all the time he's popping off

in the super chats talking in the regular chat about it and like what makes that community so special compared to the special community. I'm in a Starfield and wanting to go do the creations, but making it that, hey, we're all coming together to do this or what did you find and how did you go off and chase that and have it be more on that same level and on that same vibe, which I think is interesting. I think, you know, from my side of it, and I've talked about this obviously on a multitude of shows,

but it's always so interesting. There was one snarky comment. They're like, oh, is there a fall 76 community? Well, and it's like, no, there is. And what I always find so fascinating about video game communities is you don't know it until you find it. It's that thing where you move, you know, you move the rock and you're like, oh my God, there's how many people over here playing this game that I've heard about, but I didn't realize had a thing going on. And to see the way you and Bethesda have made these different games with their different communities as Starfield Sicko, the people who think nobody plays Starfield and I'm on this Reddit. I'm seeing the thing. I'm chasing the creations. I'm downloading everything. I'm preparing. Like,

it's fascinating to me to see the different pockets of how you've built that. And I think to double back to 76, that was something that was so interesting late last year when I went out to play the Burning Springs preview stuff and see that it really was Bethesda's answer to the criticism so many people had of fallout season one debuting and then there being no new thing, no new game, no new content, nothing really to jump into to sink your teeth in. And like, we reported on it for days it felt like of, well, fall, you know, 76 has reached this milestone of players because of the show. they're all in the top 10 again on Steam because of the show X, Y, and Z. And so to have the ghoul come and be part of that,

it was an interesting way to dovetail it without having to have a brand new game ready to go for it. Was that an answer to that question of season one when you really were like, oh man, everybody's rushing to play these games, but we don't have a brand new thing to do? We had, well, first, you know, with season one, we knew it would be popular. It was more popular than we even thought. but our goal was, let's make sure the games are ready, right? People are going to come to the games and, you know, make sure they're ready. So updating Fallout 4, having new stuff in a 76, Fallout Shelter, the mobile game.

Still, like, I think the most played Fallout game more than all the other ones combined. Outrage. Pretty sure. And so making sure those games had new stuff and were ready for players in a good spot. And so you saw this big influx into 76 then. and, you know, people then staying around. So I think the show gives you this opportunity of people being curious and saying,

I'm going to go play that, but the game has to be good and the game has to be ready. And fortunately, we were in a good spot. With season two, we just had more runway, right? We had more runway in terms of, hey, what does this look like for putting things from the show

and the game and the Gould was so popular? So we're just able to start, you know, earlier. And, you know, as we go into season three, we're sort of able to do the same thing where you're seeing sort of relevant things in Fallout 76 in particular, a little bit in the mobile games, that you would then see on TV that week.

So, yeah. Talk to me about that. Let's move over to Fallout TV. We just finished Fallout Season 2. Congratulations. What was that like getting another bite of the apple, being able to come back to this with the cast, add people in like McCauley Calkin?

Like, again, how do you split your time of working on the games, but then also now there's a show going on in your worlds. Like, what was season, how was season two for you different than season one? Start me there. Yeah, that made great questions. Look, when you do season one,

I spend most of my time up front. You know, what's the story we're going to tell? What are the scripts? You know, what's the structure of this? Where's it going to go? How does it fit into the world of fallout? And I cannot say enough. I've said it's time and time again,

Jonah Nolan, the whole casting crew, people over at Kiltor and Amazon, just have much passion. They have poured into this and wanting to get it right. And a number of us here are involved on the art side, design side, and other things. So like, hey, let's make sure this fits in the world that looks the way it should in terms of the games and everything. Because we want it to be like one kind of holistic fallout universe. Yeah. And I'll say like season one, you just don't know. It's entertainment. You're making a fallout show. There's a lot of opinions. on Fallout, obviously, because it's a, it's a franchise that jumps between, you know,

harsh drama, post-apocalyptic to B-movie, dark comedy, and it's a mashup of things. And so finding that tone that's going to work right in a linear way, and also for people that have never played the games, we felt really good about season one, but, like, you don't know. Sure. And to have it resonate the way it did, you come in, you self, since everybody coming into season two with a lot of confidence. Like, okay, this works. We can kind of step on the gas in some areas.

And the writers really wanted to go to New Vegas. They actually wanted to go there in the early, early pitches of season one. And I said, I would save that. You know, that can be, that's such an iconic thing for Fallout. It's better to, like, let's establish the base and then we can go to New Vegas. And I thought they did a really, really good job in taking it there because it's tricky. You have an iconic area, a beloved game, particularly storylines and different ways and really strong characters. And there's like a million ways to fuck that up.

And so it can be a bit of a minefield, right? Sure. And I thought they did a great job. We spent a lot of time saying, like, let's not refute anything that happened in the games, but let's see if there's some areas that, you know, the writers really want to push forward. And in particular, the use of House, who's just an incredible character, like Justin Thoreau, just, crushes it when he's on screen. You just want to see more and more and more scenes with them.

So I think they did a fabulous job. And we, you know, just, you do kind of worry about sophomore slum. You see it and some other things that that you all love in entertainment. And fortunately, people loved it. And we're on to season three. Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong,

because I've seen this reported, but I can't find a source. Is it true season three starting to film in May, or is that just scuttlebutt? The plan is to start this summer. Okay. I don't know the exact date, but it's being written now. And, you know, Jonah and crew, we like to move fast.

So we want to get these, you know, yeah. You know, it's the antithesis of the Fallout games, right? Move fast, huh? Thanks, man, good one. I'll get there. Thank you. No problem. Thank you.

You're like interview over. Close Discord, uninstall. Never come back. Savage. No. So talk to me a little bit about that. And I was wondering, you know, is it interesting telling a story this way? Obviously, Fallat 76 and the updates, there's small updates, small story pieces, yet of yet.

But for your career in video games, you're putting out these gigantic things that people play for years and are always finding new things, blah, blah, blah. I was fascinated, I guess, watching Fallout Season 2 and even ending Fallout Season 2 and seeing so many people upset might not be the right turn, but criticizing, I guess, well, like, what was the point of the super mutant Ron Perlman? What about this? What, you know, blah. And I was like, well, this is an ongoing episodic thing where they want to come back to it. And I was interested, I think it was over on Yahoo, right? Yeah, Yahoo. Mick over at Yahoo interviewed

co-creator Geneva over there. And she was talking about like what's going, or Geneva was talking about what's going on with season three and where they're going and talking about like something that we're really excited to delve into as a show next season is Vegas. Historically in the games, it was a real hub of civilization. and the fact that we're not leaving New Vegas, right? We introduced New Vegas.

We said, hey, it is, as season one was, and I've talked to you both on the air and off the air about this, of like season one when they show you the med packs, I'm like, this is from the game, that's an asset from the game, but it's in real life. To go to Vegas and have it be the strip and immediately see the Kings and then walk in and see the casinos in the hub,

and I was like, oh, this is awesome. To see us that that wasn't, as you were talking about, a glancing punch, we're there. Vegas is important, and now we're going to pick up the story, it seems, for season three, still have us going on in there. Like, were you surprised that people

weren't seeing a longer term plan based on how you've done long-term storytelling? No, I think it's understandable that you want to, you want everything to pay off immediately when you watch stuff. Sure. It does, you know, given the scope of fallout, we sort of decided like,

hey, let's make sure we treat each element. so it isn't just as, you know, a glancing blow or whatever. Like, you could have it, you could have had a death claw up here in season one, but you probably wouldn't have the time or, you know, to treat it the way it should be. So, hey, death claws, let's really make them important to season two. And then so those kind of key elements, we're picking our places and like, hey, when do you do super mutants? Like, hey, you might have a hint of it here. And then we're going to do more of it later, right?

And then geography. I think the best thing about the show versus what we do in a game. game is, I think geography is like the key element to, you know, what we do with fallout. And you say, hey, there's a new fallout. Like, where is it set? It's like the first question. So, you know, treat the show that way. Hey, each season, where is it set?

And so season three is going to take us on a journey to some new places that you've never seen in the fallout universe. Well, still, because, you know, it's a long story, you know, going back, going back to the vault, going back to Vegas some and so forth. But the one thing I've learned with TV and working with Jonah and Geneva and the folks is you can take your time, not in a way because you're trying to draw it out, because there's so much goodness there, you don't need to rush through some of these character moments. You can take your time and make sure they pay off the way that you really, really want them to. But we've discussed, hey, what's going to happen in season three? How does the whole thing end?

And even we don't know, okay, well, how many episodes does it take to get there? You kind of have to write, you have to shoot, you have to edit, and then some things kind of move around, but you still have that like, okay, we're going here with these characters. And it's obviously, it's a very, very character-driven. We have three really, really strong characters that often make you question, like, hey, would I do that? what would I do in that situation and, you know, following their journeys.

Yeah. In your head slash when you have these conversations with them, this is something we discussed on our spoiler cast for fallout season two. Like, is there an end in mind for the show or do you think it could just, maybe there's an end in mind for Lucy's story, but you could see it going on and on and on?

There's an end in mind for these characters. Okay. Yeah. And this, I'll call it like this story. Yeah. There is, there is an end in mind. Yes. Okay.

Okay. Okay. How many seasons is that? No, I'm kidding. You're not going to tell me. I know. I don't know. I don't,

I personally don't like ones that overstay. They're welcome. For sure. I'll say that. No, that's a great way. That's a great point. That's what I would much rather. That's what I always want.

I want to be left wanting more. I don't want it to end to be like, oh, man, well, seasons nine and 10 were garbage, but at least 11 ended happily. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the double-ed

sort of having an extremely popular show. People want it to go on forever, but then sometimes they can lose their magic. Sure. So we'll see. When you're talking about, you know, what you're learning from telling the stories here and letting things grow or slow down and, you know,

let it germinate, I guess. Is that doing reverberations into Elder Scroll 6, the other fallout project that you, projects you've talked about at length, in length saying that we have many fallout projects? Is it changing the way you tell stories at Bethes, I guess? No, no, I don't, I don't think so. It's more on the game side, they've always kind of been long,

meaning we see how much people play the games. You know, Skyrim is still, could be our most played game 15 years later, right? And so people play these games for a really long time. They might put it down and come back to it. And so I still, you know, I think we want stories or sort of main quests that you feel like you, in quotes, finished the game. You finish like the main thing the game was the world's wanting you to do in kind of a 20 to 30 hour spot. Like that's kind of what we designed for. It often goes longer, but that's like our intent. But then there's this whole world that you feel like in many ways

is limitless, either through, you know, quests that we have or content that's coming. And so we have over time, you can see it in our games, looked at more game systems, that continue and continue to reward you, that gets, you know, the longer you throw the stone out there, if you say, hey, someone's going to play this for a thousand hours or 2,000 hours, which we see, you know, making that rewarding when you get way out there, it's still very hard. Yeah, I would say it's nearly impossible.

I can't imagine sitting down and making a game and you're trying to make it great for the review period that people are going to go to, the normal, normal, in quotes, 20, 50, 60 hours somebody puts into it, but then yes, the 2,000 hour if somebody's going to go do that. seems like that would just be a... I mean, that often ends up sorry, often ends up like a, you know,

like a character grind. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Well, I want to talk to you a little bit more about what's coming in these Fallout games, this fallout world, all right, but I'll do that after, of course, I remind you that you can pick up a kind of funny membership, patreon.com slash kind of funny, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, Apple or Spotify, Utah says,

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questions, too, but it'd be a waste of your time. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Mellofellow says, what's Todd playing right now? Any new games? What are you playing, Todd Howard? Oh, you're muted. You muted yourself. What happened? What am I playing? Actually, I'm playing a drop duchy. Have you guys played this game? I have played drop duchy, yeah, yeah. And it like seduce me

with like a little video in terms of like, that kind of looks like Carcassone, mixed with Tetris, mixed with other stuff I like. It's a great, really creative, great game. So I'm really enjoying that. And college football 26, I play competitively online. That's a high stress game, but I do enjoy it. How good are you?

You're playing competitively online. Are you, like, are you, like, really good at it? I'm pretty good. Hell, yeah. I'm in, like, whatever the Heisman ranking category of road to the national champion, you know, college football playoffs. Are you running? I'm a big Notre Dame fan.

and since they got screwed out of the playoffs, I am on my video game Notre Dame revenge tour. Amazing. Yeah, it's great. I love it. And the Notre Dame is Jeremy I love, which is basically a video game cheat code in football. So this is the year.

This is the year for me to be good at video game football. But really, if you haven't, check out Drop Dutchie. It's really... No, yeah. Barrett threw it up there. It's really elegant,

smart game. It's very good, yes. Drop Dutchie. very impressive game. Yeah, if you're an audio listener, yeah, you are dropping tiles like Tetris, but it is not shapes. Well, they are shapes, I guess, but no, you're building the city as you go and doing all these things. Plus, of course, everything has to have the rogue like mechanic of the cards being dropped in there as well as you go. But yeah, building out your town as the pieces fall. It's an amazing piece. It's great. I want to say, I would buy a board game of this.

I either, I don't want to speak out of turn. I want to say it launched an early access and then keeps got a lot of updates, but it might have launched full bore and then keep. keeps getting updates where as somebody who played it at launch it keeps getting stuff so yeah no drop dutchy a great game Todd Howard approved which I'm sure will be on their uh Steam page any second I'm happy to give him a quote like I'm it to him right now they dropped Dutch yeah what a quote from Todd Howard play drop it master class in game design in a genre that you think you've seen everything in dang that that was awesome that is awesome put it on the back of the box. It is, though. It's great.

Okay. You know what else is great? Fallout video games. Todd, when do we get another one of those? Because you got it. The oblivion remaster was a huge success. Fallout 76 drops a few weeks. It drops on March 3rd, season 24, and the backwoods.

We're aware. For us, that's a new yeah. I know. When it comes to development, yeah, for us, that's a new thing. Is there a chip on the shoulder of the fall of 76 team about that? Is there a chip on show a little bit of fall. Every time they see it full on five when fall out one, they're like, we are on update 66 of fall at 76. Go give it a shot. I wouldn't say a chip. We just want people to recognize how much work we're doing on fallout that we're putting out.

That's fair. Many times a year. Just, we're really proud of it. And there's a great audience there. So, but it's, look, it's understandable when these big franchises people love, you know, whether it's Elder Scrolls, fallout in particular, and that people want brand new experiences. We 1,000% get it. And let's just say, look, we're working on stuff. There's a time to announce that and talk about it. But we have a lot of irons in the fire right now and all of that. Yeah, give me that update.

Last time you were here, you were very cryptic, said, we have multiple fallout projects at work for multiple. Give me a number. What, how many numbers we got? You know, fallout five, of course. That's happening. Multiple. Yeah, the multiple is still the number.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But the oblivion, you know, surprise remaster launch. That was a big hit, right? It was huge, actually. People love that.

That seems like a great thing to do with all sorts of fallout games. Yeah, I would say I'm softened on the whole remaster thing. There was a lot of conversation about, hey, should we remaster some of our games? You look at your catalog. You say, what's the right thing to do? We felt oblivion was the right one. I am very still, this is only for, like, the stuff we've made here that I've made. Sure.

I'm sort of anti-remake. I respect the other ones out there, but I really, I think part of the age of a game is part of its, it's part of what it is, like its personality and what it represented when it came out. And so as we approached Oblivion, it was, I definitely wanted to be a remaster, but kind of the absolute best version of that you can imagine.

And so the original game was important. us that the original game was running. I was like, okay, well, imagine you had patched that game many, many, many times for like many years. You had patched it. What would you have done? And so we sort of think that approach with spreading some other things. And then graphically, let's just make it look modern, but still in the style it was, right?

So we're not going to redesign the armor to be something new in the Elder Scrolls. It's like that version of it looking the way you kind of remember, but upbred. So, I mean, that was our approach to that game. And fortunately, it was, you know, it was really, you know, bigger than we imagine. Another thing I mentioned fallout season two, but another thing where the sort of dartboard of outcomes, when you're touching a kind of, you know, game with the legacy of like oblivion, most of the outcomes in the darkboard are bad, right? You can mess with what it was for people.

And so we talked about that, like, hey, here's the sliver that we need to hit that kind of, you know, not just acknowledges the legacy, but in many ways, enhances it. And so really proud of the work everyone did on it. And so we're very happy with it. And, you know, clearly we, even the success of that, remaster, we think about, we think about others, but we'll see what happens. Fair enough.

I'll give it to you. I'll let that go. Fine. All right. You know, maybe I'll play a fallout one day. Maybe Ben will be 20. It'll be 20 years old when he plays it. Let's move on then.

Since you're not going to confirm anything about my fallout games or remasters and how they can just shadow drop at any time and for the rest of time, every time there's any. I do like shadow drops. I will say that. I know you do. That is my, that is my preferred method. And so anything said before a shadow drop or that moment, I don't know if I like the phrase shadow drop,

before that moment where you learn about it, anything beforehand or leaks or everything, it just takes away from that moment. And I think that moment is really, really special. And so that's what we try to focus on. All right, for real, then let's stop and have a conversation about that because I do want perspective on that. As you know,

in terms of video game talkers, there's a hierarchy, right? There's Jeff Keeley, and then there's me. And so I get inside information all the time. And one of those dice conversations you and I were having, you were like, we're remastering of Beluvian. It's going to be a shadow job. We're just going to do this thing.

It'll just be out and be great, blah. And I was like, wow, that's really cool. And then like two months later or whatever, however long, stuff started leaking or whatever. When you wake up and you look at your phone or email and you see that that first time, right, what are you just like, motherfucker or is it just like, ah, well, did you think you were going to make it to the, Had you run the scenarios and you're like, you know, there's like a 90% certainty at some point something's going to leak.

Some asset gets uploaded. I can't be upset about it. Or were you, did you not see that coming? You were super mad. Well, we've been through so many leaks in the moment you're always pissed off. And but I, because it kind of, you know, they ruin a moment that the team's been working on. That you want to be able to present what you're doing in the right way. And it's not to keep it secret.

it's because you want to make that game, that moment special for the fans, special for the studio. And sometimes those leaks, they ruin it some or they might misinterpreted detail that everybody kind of latches onto. Interesting. That being said, like that moment of sort of being annoyed with it goes by pretty fast because they've also found historically, and this is true for other people. I pointed out all the time. I don't think a leak has ever affected the success of the game.

And there have been some really bad ones. But at the end of the day, I can't think of any that really affected the success of that game when it came out. So we sort of take it for what it is. You do your best. I try not to be draconian internally. Some places will really keep things under lock and key. We share really freely in the studio. so everybody gets to see everything.

And there's a trust level. Like our ability to share stuff even internally across our studio and the company and stuff is our ability to share it is everybody's ability to keep it secret. So we've actually had very few internal ones. But given the complexity, the number of partners and everything involved, you know, it's natural that you'll get some. And I think you just got to kind of roll with it. Okay.

Fair enough. Top of the show you mentioned we're hot off a dice. We're coming in. Dice was last week, obviously a humongous show. For people who don't know, for you, what is Dice? Obviously, it's the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Everybody comes together in Vegas and the ideas, round tables, and learning and yada, yada, yada. But like, is that still what it is for you?

What do you view Dice being? Other than a great award show I host? It is a great award show. Thank you. There's two things. There's like the personal side, like for me, what I get out of it. I've gone for a long time. I would say sort of the other studio heads or people I know, I see you there. A lot of the people I know are there and I can just have casual conversations and dinners with and learn what they're doing and learn more and talk about what we're doing, meet with partners.

And so that's just a really condensed sort of special time for me. The other part is the industry aspect of it. I'm on the board. of directors of the academy and have been for a while. And sort of, I think DICE and really the Academy of Interactive Ocean Sciences is really there to sort of elevate the conversation around game making, celebrate it, and the new people coming into the industry, sort of connect people. I think there's a lot of work to do there, right? Dice existed for a long time for the conference and for the awards. And one of the things we're talking a lot about is, you know, there's so many people, game developers, depending what company you're in, you're a part of the academy.

And they don't know it. And I think there's more that the academy can do for game developers to elevate what they're doing, elevate the conversation, and all of that. It's also in Europe and other places. So if you look at, you know, the other academies in entertainment and what they do across those things, I think, you know, that's the role fulfills. And Dice is obviously a big part of that. You know, during the award ceremony, of course, the awards are brought out on stage by AIAS scholars, and then

also this year we had a big table for them to sit at and have all this other stuff with the other people that are there. For you, I'm not saying you're in the twilight of your career, but you've been doing this a long time, right? And you are Todd Howard. Like you're at the top of the mountain in so many different respects, right? When you look at them,

what are you telling them as the industry wrestles with layoffs, you know, AI, what's going on as people consolidate into these things, and then it's all shareholders and this, that, like, it seems like obviously you listen to this show. I know you listen to Games Daily occasionally. Like, it's a lot of bad news a lot of times, and I, as a fan, get bummed out by that,

but I can't imagine I'm leaving college. I'm starting on my journey to be a game dev in seeing all this. Yeah, look, it's a great question. And I listened to the show yesterday, and I thought you guys had a pretty interesting conversation about it. And you ended up kind of where my head was, too, which is you see that in our industry. And people coming out are kind of worried they read about it. And I say to them, you should absolutely do it. If you're a new person, you have more opportunities to make a game and get it out there than anyone's ever had.

And if you look at the level of creativity, like step away from, you know, economics or big economics and look at the games that are coming out and look at the creativity in them and the audiences they are finding. Look at the game of the year nominees at Dice. That list is incredible and there could have been more.

So if I look at what's coming out, what people are talking about, or what they're playing, and I look at the industry, I'm like, this is incredible. But then, yes, behind the scenes, kind of those waves of like, well, what's it like for, you know, big development teams?

You're in a lot of question mark spots where, hey, what should a budget be on a game? Yeah. That's a big question mark. And what kind of audience are you going to find? Like, what are the chances that that makes any money? That's, that's hard right now. And people are wrestling with that because so many people are playing games. Whereas you used to, like, think about, you know, all.

all the games you would buy and click through and then go to GameStop and trade them in or do whatever. And you were kind of like going through games and now people, you know, you have the big games dominating the time or a game that you love, you spend a lot of time in. I say this as somebody kind of like our games benefit from that where people do spend a lot of time in them. For sure. But I kind of think wider across the industry. So I think the level of creativity and the stuff coming out, I mentioned Drop Dutch, is the

could be the best we've ever had. But then you have all those other things going on that I think people are working really, really hard to solve. Okay. What came out this year in conversations about AI? Obviously, this is a hot button issue. I saw, you know, you got quoted by Eurogamer talking about it being a tool, right? It'll never replace people, but it's a tool that's here.

Are you seeing other folks use it the same way or have that same opinion of it, or they think it's a fad or where are we at with AI from your side? Well, look, it's certainly not a fad. I think the AI answer now becomes, ask me in six months, right? And it changes so much what you're seeing out there. For us, we're being, like, incredibly cautious, kind of viewing it as a tool, like an analyst,

look at the data in our games. We're not using it to generate anything. Sure. I think there's such an element of artistic intention that is essential to what we do and others do, And if you look across things outside of AI, like sort of the, you know, go back on, like this idea of craftsmen. I still think craftsmen and that handcrafted human intention is what makes things special. And that's where we want to be.

But you can't ignore it in terms of it's coming. It's changing every few months. There's a new model, particularly in the tech side. with code or productivity or other things. And I'll just say we're looking at that stuff. We're not like fully ignoring it because where it can help us sort of get better at some, you know, big dated tasks that just take us a lot of time that we just wish we're done now. Sure.

So we can move on to the creative stuff. That's kind of where our heads are. But it's, I think it's still very, very early days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been an interesting back and forth. and I feel like the conversation gets so lost

because when you say AI now, people think Gen AI and they think it's writing the quest, it's making an environment, it's doing the thing, whereas I think I'd like to think, and maybe I'm naive and I'm not at studios, but it feels like the people I talk to are talking about what you're doing of, well, let's coalesce data. Let's do this thing that would take hours of boring,

busy work through an Excel spreadsheet versus not generating and making the game, but then you do hear people wanting to make the game with it, and then you're like, I don't know what the hell's happening anymore. Yeah, we just have so much data in our games and so much data that even we do classically generate, you know, with our own procedural systems or long-term play analysis and using those systems to, like, help us with that or validate some things that we're thinking. I think has a lot of use, you know, today. But again, this is something that's changing really rapidly. Sure.

And we'll see where it goes. The one last thing I want to hit on from Dice was Vince. Vince Zampella, of course, passed away tragically in December. They did a Dice tribute there. You spoke there. I wanted to read this passage from Stephen Totillo's Game File report on the tribute. Quote, Vince was the real deal. Long time, Bethesda game designer and leader Todd Howard said on stage at Dice describing their 20-year friendship. Quote, I'd always seek his advice with every game that I did or how to maneuver on all that is going on in the industry and, quote, Todd, I'm so sorry for your loss. What is it to you that made him your friend and then made him so special in this industry? Because this was something that I've had the, you know, geez man, the blessing to work with Vince

a handful of times in interviews or segments or things like that. And he was always such a great personable ask me about the family dude. And then to find out he's that way with everyone while also having his head on the shoulders for games this way. For you, what made him so special? Yeah, thanks for asking. It's a tough, it's a tough subject. Of course.

And, like, you know, Vince and I were about the same age. We met right after Allied assault, you know, that incredible E3 demo they did. And kind of like we came up in the industry together. And as the industry got like larger and more complex, like his ability to maneuver it, and my own ability to maneuver it. And he was sort of, if you think about his career of like changing studios and publishers and being able to do the level of work with the level of change that he went through. And he was the same exact.

He was the same exact person. I said in the talk, I think they're going to put it online. Vince was the least full of shit person that you met. He just, he would call it as he saw it. And he had no fear, right? His ability to kind of push through that. Like, this is what the game needs. This is what the team needs.

And I don't personally care what I have to do to make that happen. I don't care what I have to do to protect it. He was the real deal. And, I mean, if you've been to Dice or most people listening would never been in Dice, but you would see Vince there. A lot of people would see Vince there. And he's such, like, people would gravitate. toward him because he was the real deal.

And just an incredible loss for the industry. Obviously the teams that he worked out at Respond, his family, his friends. He was just, I don't think there'll be another Vince Zampella, both as a person or with that kind of record of topping themselves and topping themselves. given everything that's changing around them. It's just like impossibly hard.

So, yeah, it's a very, very, very special guy to many people. Thank you for sharing that. And again, I'm sorry for your loss. It is interesting. You mentioned, you know, you and Vince for the same age or about the same age and stuff like that. I feel like something that comes up a lot of times when I see you get interviewed and when I have a conversation with you on camera like this is the idea of where are you at in your career.

Like I mentioned earlier I'm not saying it's a twilight of your career, but you have been on the record before. These games take a long time, so I don't know how many more I have in me. Like, how are you still viewing that right now in 2026? I used to,

I mean, I think maybe four or five years ago. It was because of the pandemic. I would think about it. Like, hey, what's my plan I'm going to do? And now I just, I don't know, I just don't think about it.

I got to be honest. I'm too excited about the games. You're like, I got games to make, I can think about that. Yeah, I think about the studio and the people here, and I just love it. Like, you sit down and, you know, was it lunch today with a bunch of folks brainstorming about the new game that we're doing?

And you leave that, and I just, I get so excited. I just want to play this game. I just want to work on it with these people. And, you know, I love it. I have done it for a very long time, you know, what is it, over three decades now. But I don't, it doesn't feel that way. you know, honestly. And I think it's the greatest, like, form of entertainment,

creative kind of avenue mixed with technology. I love both of those things. And I just love work with people here, want to play these games, and do it as long as I can. Excellent answer. Todd, I know we're almost out of time with you. Are you ready for some super chat speed questions?

They've been coming in. Sure, absolutely. Clear your mind. Get out of it. Oh, no problem. Lute has the most important one, does Todd want to join my college football 26th Dynasty? Maybe. Put me not as a strong maybe.

I don't know. My time is, I just want to jump in. I don't even play the ultimate team. I don't want to manage a team. Sure, sure, sure. I don't do the recruiting. I just get in and grind just head to head ranked like so. Fair.

Okay. I want to, you think I might disappoint them. That's up. Come stream. I want to say, I want a stream of you just fucking. beaten the doors off people in college football.

Brendan Lucas superchats. I've been getting a real kick out of creations. Is there any planned evolution of the program for larger scale creations supported by Bethesda? Yeah, we've done a little bit of that if you've seen some of the King Gath creations and other ones. And like I said, we have a, we have a ways to go there.

There's some wacky rules with like storage and other things that we're working with the platforms on kind of solving. It's great on the PC where we can do that. but we are in a world where when we do those things and support, we really want to have them on all the platforms at once. Yeah.

Parker J.G says, Todd, big fan of yours and Bethesda Game Studios. I found Starfield to be a very impressive accomplishment, but missed the organic exploration. Thoughts? Yeah, I think that's a good, it's a good criticism. I think when you look at the criticisms of Starfield, the way you explore in that game,

giving the nature of what it is is just, it's tricky, it's harder. You're going to land on ice balls. You have outer space is big. I think we did a lot of good things, but I think the nature of that problem is really hard. And look, I think for some people, understandably, I'm not like, Starfield can be a boring game. And we have some things in the new update, I will say, that make that procedural sort of what you're getting better, but I don't think it changes the nature of the exploration per se.

Okay, fair enough. Bandrescens says, hey Todd, loved the great circle. Girlfriend named our puppy indie after playing it together. That's just a win. Yeah, that was that I adore that game. That was definitely something I had been in my head for a long time and just working with the folks at machine games. Was incredible working with Troy Baker. No.

You're a little back and forth with Troy at Dice. was my highlight. You don't want to talk about that. Troy is a persona non-grada here and right now, right, after everything he's pulled. Troy? I don't think people, I think people know Troy's work,

but they actually don't know how good Troy is. Like when you work with Troy, he commits unlike anyone I've ever worked with in that area, and he's baron on the best at it. I will work with him every single time. He's the best. But in the fight him and I are having, you're on my side, yeah?

what's just say for this few, this brief moment. You calling him? I don't think that I'm going to be on your stupid show right now. Because Troy, I'm interviewing Todd Howard and I want to, he's on my side. I wanted you know he's on my side. Okay. I said for a few seconds, Troy. Todd Howard, you know, a guy who made your career?

God, that news sounds familiar. Hold on. Did he do, hold on. he's in games. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Todd. Yay, yeah, yeah. I take back everything I said.

Yeah, see, there it is. Now you pissed off, Todd, even more. Bye, Troy, nice try. I'm replacing you in Indiana, Jim. No, Ben Starr. Ben Starr is going to replace you in Indiana Jones, too. Now, bye. Oh, God.

You know, and you have to put up with that all the time. It's not fair. It's not fair. I should be like this. I'm trying to get you one. Okay, last one. Here's a good one. You ready, Todd?

Final one. then you can go home, okay? Sassy Lassie says, when is the Elder Scroll Sticks coming out? Remember, she paid to ask this question. Don't disappoint your fans. Not this week. Todd Howard, thank you so much for making the time. One day, it'll be here. One day it'll be. Take all the time you want. We want it to be as good as possible. I don't think people want to hear that. Oh, Jesus. Now Troy's calling back. Hold on. I don't. I'm trying to outro the show, Troy.

a great outro. Okay. So you got to thank Todd. Remind everybody to subscribe, like and share and then you say until next time it's been our pleasure to serve you.

Okay. So first of all, Todd Howard is one of the best people working in this business that is absolutely everyone knows this. Make sure you like and subscribe. Thank you for being a part

of like a chair. And whatever the last part was. I don't really take line reads. You know what I mean? Make it organic into my own thing. It's fair enough, Troy. You've earned it. you could do whatever you want.

Thank you for calling back. We love you. Bye. Bye. Todd, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. Go make some of these games. Finish some of these games,

all right. And keep listening. I always do. You know. Great seeing you, man. Pleasure seeing you. I'm sorry. I didn't catch up at dice.

I think this was better. This was better. I appreciate the. I'll dodge of the coffee dates forever if it gets me content. I appreciate that. Everybody, thank you for watching, listening. Remember, of course, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games.

Like, subscribe, share, podcast services around the globe, Twitch all the time. Get your Patreon.com slash kind of funny game subscription. And of course, until next time, no, it's been our pleasure to serve you.