Living in Oblivion

In case you've been marooned on a south seas island for the last year, here's a quick recap: The Elder Scrolls® IV: Oblivion™ isn't just one of the hottest titles of 2006, it's also quickly shaping up to be the most extensive fantasy role-playing game ever.

You won't simply sojurn in the world of Tamriel, you'll actually live in it. To make this fantasy a reality, miles of dungeons, forests, and towns are inhabited by over 1000 non-player characters (NPCs) intelligent enough to go about their own daily routines. A sweeping visual upgrade, cinematic score, and more new weapons, items, and monsters than you could wave a wand at —as well as options for being good or evil—should also do wonders for the title's reputation.

Not that it needs the boost; as the sequel to the best-selling The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind®, interactive outings just don't come more pedigreed. Excited about the chance to once again explore the robust medieval universe this franchise has to offer, I sat down with Todd Howard, executive producer, who gave me behind-the-scenes info on this red-hot Xbox 360™ title.

Xbox.com: I'm dying to know—what's the best part about developing games for Xbox 360?

Todd Howard: Power tools. Like the big things that have spinning blades and cut stuff up, the Xbox 360 has great tools and great power. We also love working with the folks at Microsoft, especially the guys in the ATG group who help us get at the extra power. They've been a huge help. And I'm not just "sucking up to the man" either ... I wish everyone got to see how committed these people are to making great games.

Xbox.com: Why was Xbox 360 the obvious choice of platform for Oblivion?

Howard: Our familiarity with the tools, the hardware, what we wanted to do ... it's just a great match. It's one of those situations where we knew the people involved and we were able to talk to them very early on with "I have some crazy ideas" type pitches, and they told us their crazy ideas, and they matched up, from the graphics to the memory to Xbox Live® Marketplace. We wanted to render full forests, we wanted an extra fast thread to calculate NPCs throughout the world, we wanted to do lots of downloadable content. In terms of memory, we really wanted 512MB as well, and that was something that Microsoft eventually did, so in the end, we end up with the perfect platform for the game we wanted to create.

Xbox.com: Anything you'll be able to do with the game on Xbox 360 that just wouldn't be possible anywhere else?

Howard: Hmmm, I guess it's more about the fact that we can do it all and not really have to cut corners. So for instance, in the PC version, depending on your PC, there's a part of it you won't be seeing in all its glory, but on the Xbox 360, you get it all. Please, everyone, buy an HD set ... just please.

It's the cat's meow.

Xbox.com: Why will it be the best RPG ever?

Howard: Oh jeez, that's for someone else to answer. We just try to do better then we did last time. I hope we have.

Xbox.com: Please tell us a little bit about the world in which the game is set, and what makes it so compelling?

Howard: It's Tamriel, which we've been nurturing for over 10 years, and on the surface, it's your standard fantasy fare. But I guess because of our game style, we're able to present this depth to the world that you just don't get to experience in other games. Like what kinds of flowers grow, what people's literature and customs are like, how races react to each other. I think a lot of games have great worlds and amazing back-stories that you don't necessarily get to experience, and because of the first-person giant-freeform style of our stuff, you can.

Xbox.com: One of the coolest parts of the game is the hyper-intelligent NPCs. Mind describing a few characters we'll meet and just how smart they are?

Howard: I wish they weren't so smart, actually. We spent forever making them really smart, and probably the last few months making them dumber, because they like to go off and do things that really mess the world up. A few weeks ago there was an instance where a player dropped the "Skull of Corruption," an artifact that when used on an enemy makes an evil clone of that enemy. He was just testing and wanted to make sure the object used the physics correctly when dropped. So he drops it and an NPC runs up, grabs it, and shoots the player with it—creating an evil version of the player who starts killing everyone. It was hilarious.

Beware of giant magnets.

Xbox.com: What are some of the sweet spells and gear gamers can lay their hands on?

Howard: How many pages is this interview, anyway? Well, there's the Skull of Corruption. Seriously, there's just far too many to mention. We're including lots of variety for every type of spellcaster. You can set things on fire, shock them, paralyze them, conjure things to fight for you ... there's just tons and tons of things to do, and then you get into creating your own custom spells and it really gets unbelievable.

Xbox.com: How does Oblivion tap the Xbox 360's power in ways previously unimaginable?

Howard: We're finding new ways every day. The machine has loads of power, and it's very well put together, and what you find is that you have to think in new ways to get the most out of it. From writing longer shaders, to using multiple cores, it's going to be a long time before you see software that uses one-hundred percent of the Xbox 360's capabilities, and games for it are only going to get better and better.

Roll your own character.

Xbox.com: Touching on something you mentioned before, just how much more glorious an adventure can owners expect from the title than their PC-loving counterparts?

Howard: Again, it depends on their setup. If they have the absolute latest PC with a video card that is fully shader model 3.0 compatible and a giant HD monitor, they're about the same. The question is, can they get all of that for $399? And does it let them play Geometry Wars? That game rules.

Xbox.com: What's it take in terms of manpower, time, resources, etc. to put a project this big together?

Howard: I haven't added it up recently, but we're at around three and a half years of development on it right now and just under 100 people working day and night on it. So the short answer is "a lot." It's been a lot of work. We tend to go really crazy in terms of designing features in the beginning and then have to keep pushing ourselves to make them work well in every situation. The nature of trying to make a game where the player can do anything has its good points and its bad points. Players love to "test the edges" of the cage you put them in.

Church is in session.

Xbox.com: Just how long do you think a game like Oblivion will captivate people for and why?

Howard: That depends on the player. The game has over 200 hours of play, but even that is replayable with different races and classes, so it's infinite. There's one type of player who wants to get lost in a game that is this long. There's also another type who just wants to "save the world" and move onto the next game that is coming out, and that takes about 20 hours. You can complete any of the big quest lines in about 20 hours, and each feels like its own game. You feel rewarded, and I think that's important. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people play a quest line, play another game, and then come back to Oblivion for more and play a completely different character and try another quest line.

Xbox.com: Where is the emphasis going: Combat, storytelling, character development...? And what type of RPG fan is it most targeted at?

Howard: The emphasis is on doing whatever you want. We don't really target one element of play over another. We kind of have to touch on it all in this kind of game. We like action, so we present the tale in first-person. We want you to feel like you are there, that this is a real place that you can go and see anything in. If we focus on anything most though, it is the "dungeon hack" experience. That's the meat of the game. I mean, if you look at Arena, the first Elder Scrolls game, it's basically a giant dungeon hack, and it's awesome. So that was our first goal—make the best dungeon romp we can—and everything else is gravy. Good gravy, but still gravy.

Here's hoping he's a right-hander.

Xbox.com: Let's go into character creation a little bit. What can I be? What makes each type/class so special? And how do you guarantee my digital double will be a memorable personality?

Howard: We use a procedural face system that allows you to create just about any face you want. We also have 10 races to pick from that each have their own powers. Plus there are birthsigns that convey additional abilities or stat boosts. You can choose one of our pre-defined classes or create your own custom class. So with all of that, there are several billion (with a "b") combinations of characters you can make. If you include the different faces, it's really infinite.

I can't guarantee that your character will be memorable. Whether it's memorable depends on what you do in the game and how much fun you have. We're hoping we've made such a game, but that's for others to decide. You may sit and read books in a tavern and listen to townsfolk for hours on end in the game, but if that's what you want to do—go nuts.

Xbox.com: Between this and Call of Cthulhu®: Dark Corners of the Earth™, it's obvious you guys are huge proponents of the Xbox 360. Why such passion for the platform?

Howard: We didn't develop Cthulhu internally, but we pushed hard to have it made for Xbox. We were shocked by the reception Morrowind got on the Xbox®, so I think we've found that the Xbox consumer is a very savvy gamer who wants an experience that doesn't treat them like dopes. They're very receptive to the kind of games we like, so it's a good fit.

Home on the strange.

Xbox.com: The absolute coolest part about Oblivion in your opinion would be? And any specific neat touches gamers should look for?

Howard: Poisoned Apples are my new favorite. You get them from the assassin's guild and can slip them into taverns and watch people come to eat and drop dead.

Xbox.com: Finally, seeing as you're fighting off a bunch of demons in the game, what's the one thing you should never, ever say to an angry, slavering representative of the hordes of hell?

Howard: "How's your wife ... and my kids?"

Article by Scott Steinberg

• Bethesda Softworks