Game Design - Is There a Trade Off Between Realism and Story?

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As time goes on, there is visually a diminishing return in terms of what you're able to do on the screen. Usually we will start with let the player have as much agency and do as many things as they can as possible. And we will sacrifice some graphic fidelity for that, some speed for that. We still relatively compared to our industry and what we're doing have smaller teams. It's usually where we find as time goes on the amount of art time that it takes to create a cup has increased.

Todd Howard is a legendary video game designer at Bethesda Game Studios. He led the development of the Elder Scrolls series and the Fallout series, and an upcoming game Starfield. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(05:53) – Simulation
(07:49) – NPCs
(16:40) – Daggerfall and Arena
(24:53) – Bethesda
(33:18) – Video game graphics
(39:37) – The essence of a video game
(44:25) – Redguard
(49:25) – Creating open worlds
(57:04) – Superintelligent NPCs
(1:01:58) – Starfield
(1:21:40) – The Elder Scrolls 6
(1:41:01) – Fallout
(1:48:09) – Character creation
(1:53:11) – Quests & items
(2:06:57) – Xbox
(2:12:22) – Greatest game of all time
(2:22:38) – Day in the life
(2:30:32) – Advice for young people
(2:34:00) – Fallout TV show
(2:38:32) – Indiana Jones game
(2:44:44) – Meaning of life