Todd Howard has 'softened' on remasters, but he's still 'anti-remake'

Todd Howard says he has "softened on the whole remaster thing" in the wake of last year's Oblivion Remastered, which the article notes made Bethesda approximately a squillion dollars. Back in 2018 he preferred not to remaster Morrowind or Fallout 1, pointing out that "if you have a PC, you can play Fallout the way it was," but he now admits that "given the success of [Oblivion's] remaster, we think about others." Howard describes the Oblivion approach as a remaster aimed to be "the absolute best version of that you can imagine," and says it was important that "the original game was running." The remaster even contains the original game's files, tucked inside the release "like a mosquito in amber." I share Howard's caution about full remakes.

If Bethesda announced a Morrowind remake tomorrow, I'd be sceptical that modern sensibilities would do the game any favours, and I think a remake could erase much of what made it special.

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