Bethesda Boss Todd Howard Makes Rare Reddit Appearance, Fans Immediately Beg for Oblivion Remastered Patches

Bethesda chief Todd Howard has made a rare Reddit post, telling fans the developer is "constantly listening" to the community. Unsurprisingly, fans responded with requests.

Howard posted in the r/games subreddit after Bethesda announced its release roadmap for the coming years. With The Elder Scrolls 6 occupying Bethesda Game Studios, Howard confirmed Fallout 5 is now in pre-production, Obsidian (developer of New Vegas) is working on a new Fallout game, remasters of Fallout 3 and New Vegas are in development, and Starfield is still alive.

This announcement followed a significant round of layoffs across Xbox that hit Bethesda hard as new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma continues her "reset" of Microsoft's gaming business. The reset involves doubling down on core franchises, meaning more The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, faster.

Howard then took the unusual step of posting on Reddit, calling himself a "professional lurker" who gets "great ideas" from the site. He encouraged fans to keep providing feedback and posting ideas for future Bethesda games.

Here's the full post: [omitted for brevity]

This is Howard's first Reddit comment in six months. His last was a simple "Dear Reddit, please never change" in a thread about a mod inserting Todd Howard into Fallout 4. Before that, he posted three years ago to thank fans for their "passion and excitement" for Starfield, and five years ago as part of a Reddit AMA celebrating Skyrim's 10th anniversary, where he said he hadn't posted online in 15 years.

I don't think this means Howard will suddenly become a regular poster, but it clearly marks the start of a new era under Microsoft—one with more Fallout, for sure. More communication will likely be needed to convey Bethesda's vision.

Unsurprisingly, Howard's post was immediately met with fan requests, the first calling for patches for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. "Thanks Todd. Please get Virtuous to keep patching Oblivion and give it as much love as you gave Skyrim, because it feels abandoned right now," said Redditor GamerLove1.

As reported in May, Oblivion Remastered hasn't received a PC patch since July 2025 and still suffers from launch issues, including worsening performance over time.

Will Oblivion Remastered eventually get some love? Overall, it seems like a big success for Bethesda, which contracted Virtuos to remake the beloved RPG using Unreal Engine 5. It has over 9 million players, and Howard told IGN in December that the studio was "really, really pleased with how well it did." So it's odd the game hasn't seen an update in so long. Oblivion Remastered launches for Nintendo Switch 2 on August 11, 2026, so perhaps a big update for all versions will arrive then.

Meanwhile, Bethesda has said that while it won't host a traditional Fallout Day broadcast this year, it's planning something special for Fallout's 30th anniversary in 2027, when Fallout Day will be celebrated live in Washington, D.C. Also next year, Bethesda plans to release a major Fallout 76 expansion called Raven Rock, which serves as a prequel story to Fallout 3.