Bethesda's Todd Howard nabs GDCA lifetime achievement award

Howard played a crucial role in the development of seminal open-world epics like The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Fallout 3, and pioneered many mechanics that are now standard for the genre and for PC gaming at large.

GDCA organizers note that Howard and his team at Bethesda pioneered the use of full-time, 3D mouselook with the 1995 release of The Terminator: Future Shock, providing a mechanical template for hundreds of first-person games released in the decades that followed.

The GDCA also credits Howard with “pushing world creation and player modding” in 2002’s The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. At one point in his career, Howard developed three consecutive games that were each honored as Game of the Year at multiple publications: The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

Howard will be receive the award during a March 16th ceremony at the 2016 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series present gamers with fully realized worlds filled with vast landscapes, and mystery at every corner,” Game Developers Conference general manager Meggan Scavio stated. “We’re proud to honor the visionary developer for his leadership in creating these universes.”

Scavio continued: “When you’re completely captivated by these detailed worlds, it’s easy to forget the level of dedicated work and creativity that went into every square inch. This award reflects on the amazing craft of Todd Howard and his team in making worlds as real as anything on Earth.”

Previous Lifetime Achievement Award recipients at the Game Developers Choice Awards include industry luminaries like Warren Spector, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Ken Kutaragi, and Peter Molyneux.