Industry legend Todd Howard recently got the chance to discuss the entire history of his video game career right up until the release of Starfield. He goes through Bethesda's many milestones over the years and also shares some extra insight about all of the projects he's worked on.
One segment, focused on the 2002 game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, sheds light on just how significant this release was at the time. And in case you did forget or weren't aware of just how much of an impact it had on Bethesda, Todd sums up this "huge success" as the reason the company is still around today:
Todd Howard: "If we go back to the year 2000, Microsoft is thinking about creating the Xbox and technically it was great for us, it's a very PC-styled console, it has a hard drive, so many things that we would be looking for in a console, and the big question was, how do we translate the controls and all of those things? Fortunately, we are all here today because this game was a huge success, I was stunned, obviously, it did well on the PC but on Xbox at the time it became the second best-selling game behind Halo."
Todd's retelling of his career happens to line up with the original Xbox's 22nd anniversary. Yes, believe it or not, but Xbox has now been around for over two decades! Bethesda has pretty much been with Microsoft since the beginning of the brand's origins as well thanks to the release of Morrowind.
Now it's come full circle, with Microsoft acquiring Bethesda and parent company ZeniMax Media in 2021 and most recently releasing the space RPG Starfield, which has had a huge amount of success setting Game Pass records and becoming Bethesda's biggest game launch of all time.
If all of this has got you wanting to relive the glory days of Morrowind and Bethesda's many other classics, the games featured in the above video are available on Xbox's digital store and can also be played via Game Pass.
How long have you been playing Bethesda games? Any fond memories of Morrowind on Xbox or any of the company's other games over the years? Tell us in the comments.
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Awesome, glad it kept ya going! Now if y’all would kindly drop Fallout 3 and NV on Switch…. Maybe even FO4…. I’m positive you could fund all future Starfield and ESO6 endeavors. Please and thank you kindly!
Man, Morrowind was such a revelation. I’d never played anything like it at the time, and honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever played anything like it since, and that includes Oblivion and Skyrim.
I never hopped on the Morrowind train....but Oblivion, that was my jam.
But but but only Sony has longer relationships and “cultivates” studios before they buy them.
@cburg you beat to me it. I was going to say would this be enough to justify the Bethesda buyout for the Sony fan’s? I have said all this before and the answer was no. Always good to sometimes try again. Todd and Phil are close friends and have been for over 20 years.
Thank you to BGS and Todd. You guys make the best games of all time (imo).
Thanks for the memories Todd and Bethesda. Hopefully the next Elder Scrolls is not your last game. MS owns the Shadowrun IP. Would love to see their take on the cyberpunk genre.
Loved Morrowind and would love a remaster.
@LunarFlame17 same it was amazing all the things you could do in it.
@LunarFlame17 completely agree. There was a poll on here a while ago for the best Bethesda game and I said it there. While Oblivion and Skyrim are both incredible games they will never top the wow factor of Morrowind. All that choice and freedom in a completely 3D open world, it was, as you say, a revelation.
Although I had an Xbox at the time but I had Morrowind on PC and the construction set was so easy to use even for a kid like me.
Ah - Morrowind and Oblivion, such fantastic titles and happy memories. I hope we get to see more such inventiveness in the future, and with MS backing, I can see no reason why we wont!
People forget how 'revolutionary' the Xbox was and the purpose was to bring 'PC' games to the 'masses'. The DirectX Box they built was meant to be very 'PC' styled - which at the time made it big and bulky but enabled Companies like Bethesda who had been very PC focussed to release their games for Console.
@LunarFlame17 I completely agree. I loved Morrowind even though RPGs aren't really my thing, especially more traditional fantasy style western RPGs like Morrowind.
But man, what a game, it was good enough that I find it extremely immersive and engrossing even though it's not my genre of choice.
Funnily enough after trying both Skyrim and Oblivion in recent years and not really liking either of them, I was wondering if it was just me who much prefers Morrowind
Despite the rudimentary graphics, Morrowind had a certain sincerity, depth, atmosphere and sense of immersion that is unmatched by any other RPG I've played.
Same. Morrowind would be a close third in my most wanted remasters after Wave Race 64 and Mario 64
I still play Morrowind occasionally, on my Series X. It's dated and that line-of-view fog is annoying as hell, but I love it so much!
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