‘I think geniuses come up with terrible ideas, too’: Former senior artist at Bethesda likens Todd Howard’s struggles with complete creative control to George Lucas

I think, with the appropriate amount of hindsight, we can all agree that Starfield didn’t take off as the multi-year industry titan that Bethesda was hoping it would be. While I, and plenty of other players, got a reasonable amount of enjoyment out of it, it wasn’t quite in line with the studio’s other heavy-hitters. The post-launch support hasn’t been (inter)stellar either, and its first DLC, according to our Shattered Space review, hasn’t done enough to bring it back to life.

There are about a dozen reasons you can cite as to why this was the case, but one that appears to be a reoccurring theme between former developers is the studio—or, rather, the studio’s head honcho, Todd Howard—suffering from success. So sayeth Dennis Mejillones, a character artist who worked at Bethesda for over 12 years, including work on Starfield itself, during an interview with Kiwi Talkz.

While the comparison in the headline might not seem flattering at first blush, In the interest of fairness I want to highlight that Meijilones is, broadly speaking, very positive on his relationship with Howard: “I love Todd, I do. He’s one of the greatest influences on my life … This man has been a mentor, a guide, he’s been patient with me. So a lot of what I am, he’s helped shape that.

“Is he perfect? No, does he call all the shots perfectly? No.” Meijilones recounts a couple of times where he disagreed with Howard on key issues, and while he says he felt comfortable bringing them up if he “felt strongly”, he does admit that “a lot of people were afraid to say no to Todd, and I think that hurt him.”

Here’s where the George Lucas comparison comes in. “It’s like George Lucas—George Lucas, I think, is a genius. I think geniuses come up with terrible ideas, too, they’re not gonna be hits. But if you don’t have somebody to help you filter through these things, and give you an honest assessment, because they’re afraid to tell you what they really think, it actually does hurt you.”

For context, one often-cited reason for why the original Star Wars movies are considered space opera classics, while the prequels are considered, uh, not that, is that Lucas was given more and more direct power over them as time went on. For example, episodes four to six were extensively edited by his then-wife Marcia Lucas, who divorced George Lucas after episode six’s release, and had little part in the following films.

Mind, George Lucas is sometimes described as stubborn—just ask, well, George Lucas, who said “I’m a stubborn guy and I didn’t want people to tell me how to make my movies.” Whereas Howard, if the developers working under him are to be believed, is more a victim of circumstance. Back in October 2023, former lead designer on Skyrim Bruce Nesmith said that “he has tried really really hard to not be the ‘last say’ guy, [but] it hasn’t worked out that way. That’s not something he wants intellectually, I think it ends up being that way because he’s somebody who has opinions and whose opinions are valuable.”

Another interesting parallel here is how Meijilones says: “One of the reasons I kind of ‘retired’ is—I was like, I miss Todd, I miss working with him, he’s running this big business [that] grew tremendously … His attention was very scattered. Some of the people who took his place, they’re not Todd, it takes a lot to be Todd.”

Nesmith also mirrored this back in October 2023, where he stated: “when you’re running six different studios and you’ve got a dozen projects—although usually only one really big one—going on at a time, you know, he’s only one man, he doesn’t have the facetime to do that anymore!”

All of this paints the picture of a former auteur designer struggling to adjust to a studio ballooning in size and scope. Not that it’s all been bad, mind. Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game has been a downright smashing success, with our own Ted Litchfield scoring it a 86 in his Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review. PC Gamer’s Wes Fenlon also chose it for his personal Game of the Year pick back in December. When it comes to RPGs, though? If Starfield’s the future, then it looks like Bethesda has some work to do informing its employees that you can, in fact, disagree with your boss.