Todd Howard Draws the Line: Elder Scrolls 6 Will Keep AI Out to Protect Artistry
With AI seeping into everything from RAM prices to dev pipelines, Bethesda Game Studios leader Todd Howard has laid out the studio’s stance—just as anticipation for The Elder Scrolls 6 hits a new peak.
AI chatter is everywhere right now, but Todd Howard just planted a flag for Bethesda. Short version: he is fine using AI to speed up the boring parts, but he does not want it creating the art, the words, or the worlds you actually care about. With The Elder Scrolls 6 still tucked away in the vault, that clarity matters.
Howard's stance: AI is a shop tool, not the artist
Speaking at a press event for Amazon's Fallout season 2 earlier this week, Howard told Eurogamer that AI is creeping into game development, but not as a replacement for people. He framed it like upgrading your software workflow: modern tools can save time, but they do not decide what the thing is or why it exists.
"We want to protect the artistry. The human intention of it is what makes our stuff special."
He also made it explicit that Bethesda is not feeding AI prompts to spit out art, dialogue, or lore. The studio is keeping it in the back room, not the writer's room.
What Bethesda is and is not using AI for
- Not for generating assets, dialogue, or worldbuilding content. Those are human-made.
- Used behind the scenes to check environments, automate repetitive tasks, and help with big, technical processes at scale.
- Think workflow efficiency, not a creative collaborator. More like moving from an old toolset to a faster one.
How that fits with the rest of the industry
This is a calmer, more guarded approach than a lot of what we are seeing. Players have already called out AI-made art showing up in big franchises like Call of Duty, where community sleuthing flagged AI-generated calling cards, posters, and reward icons in Black Ops 6 and then again in Black Ops 7. That kind of thing is fueling a wider fight over how much AI is too much, especially when games still cost full price.
On the other end, companies like Epic have been very vocal that AI will be baked into most pipelines going forward. And then you have creative heavyweights like Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser blasting the trend entirely, likening AI to 'mad cow disease' and arguing that executives pushing it are not the most imaginative people in the room. In other words, the temperature on this topic is high.
Bethesda's position lands somewhere measured: keep the humans in charge, let the machines handle the grunt work.
What this means for The Elder Scrolls 6
If you were worried Elder Scrolls 6 might be stitched together by a bot, Howard's comments are about as reassuring as it gets. He did not spill new details or dates, though. He has already said the game is still a long way off, and with the project first announced back on June 10, 2018, the realistic read is that we are waiting years, not months. 2027 or later would not be a shock.
Worth noting: both Bethesda and partners like Amazon have taken heat from fans before. In 2023, some early promo materials for the Fallout series were accused by fans of leaning on generative AI. That kind of backlash is exactly why this line Howard is drawing matters now.
Bottom line
AI at Bethesda is a wrench, not a writer. The Elder Scrolls 6 will be shaped by people, and whatever automation they do use sounds like it stays under the hood. In an industry that keeps testing the limits of what fans will accept, that is a notable choice.