Todd Howard, the legendary executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, reportedly held a deep admiration for Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, frequently questioning former staff about the creative process behind hits like The Last of Us.
A Peek Into Howard’s Curiosity
Heather Cerlan, an artist who transitioned from Naughty Dog to Bethesda, shared her experience during a recent discussion on the Kiwi Talkz podcast. While having lunch with Howard and other senior staff shortly after joining the Bethesda team, she noted that the conversation quickly pivoted toward the Naughty Dog head.
“Todd was actually asking me a lot of questions about what it was like to work with Neil,” Cerlan revealed. “I got the sense he either idolized Neil, or wanted to understand his process.”
“A Bit of a Fanboy”
Cerlan admitted that Howard’s line of questioning caught her off guard. Given Howard’s status as a titan of the gaming industry with massive franchises like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout under his belt, seeing him express such interest in a peer was unexpected.
“It took me by surprise because it felt like he was a bit of a fanboy for Neil Druckmann,” she added. While it is rare to see an industry veteran like Howard look up to someone else, the rigorous production standards required for Uncharted and The Last of Us likely resonated with his own experience in high-stakes game development.
Competitive Spirits and TV Adaptations
Cerlan, who contributed to Starfield during her tenure at Bethesda from 2018 to 2021, also touched upon the potential for professional rivalry between the two studios. She speculated that there might have been a sense of competition regarding the development of the Fallout and The Last of Us television adaptations.
Both projects experienced a stop-and-start development cycle throughout the 2010s, which may have fueled a competitive atmosphere. While The Last of Us was officially announced in March 2020 and Fallout followed in July, the latter required an additional year before finally reaching screens. Despite the professional distance, Cerlan’s anecdotes suggest a genuine, lingering interest from the Bethesda lead in the methods of his Naughty Dog counterpart.
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