Todd Howard, distinguished video game creative director, designer and executive producer, has been at Bethesda for 22 years and is behind some of the industry’s most successful and beloved games, including a number of blockbusters within the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series.
He was an early pioneer of open 3D worlds, creating the PC's first 3D shooter with mouselook in 1995 with The Terminator: Future Shock, and pushing world creation and player modding in 2002's breakthrough The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. He has since become one of the rare few game designers to ever develop three consecutive “Game of the Year” titles (The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim). Most recently, Fallout 4 has had great commercial success, along with tremendous critical acclaim including nominations in multiple 2016 Choice Award categories: Game of the Year, Best Design and Best Technology.
Additionally, Howard directed Fallout Shelter, Bethesda Game Studios’ first mobile game, which quickly rose to the number one spot on the iTunes App Store and Google Play store within days of its release. Fallout Shelter also received a Choice Award nomination for Best Handheld/Mobile Game.
“The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series present gamers with fully realized worlds filled with vast landscapes, and mystery at every corner. We’re proud to honor the visionary developer for his leadership in creating these universes,” said Meggan Scavio, General Manager of all GDC events. “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.”
Howard joins the ranks of previous Lifetime Achievement Award recipients such as Warren Spector, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Ken Kutaragi, Peter Molyneux, Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, among others. Lifetime Achievement recipients are chosen by the Game Developers Choice Awards Advisory Committee, which includes notable game industry leaders such as Raph Koster (Independent), Julien Merceron (Bandai Namco), Bob Rafei (Big Red Button), Caryl Shaw (Telltale), John Vechey (Pluto VR).
The Game Developers Choice Awards will be hosted by Funomena co-founder and game designer Robin Hunicke (Journey, BloomBox, MySims). The Choice Awards ceremony will be held immediately following the Independent Games Festival, which takes place on Wednesday, March 16th at 6:30 pm at the Moscone Convention Center during the 2016 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The ceremony is open to all GDC attendees and both sets of award shows will also be available to stream live online via Twitch.tv for those not attending GDC.