Bethesda Game Studios executive producer and game director Todd Howard, the driving force behind the mega-popular Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises, has been announced as the 22nd inductee into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. Howard "has created some of the industry's most success games by pioneering open-world gameplay," the AIAS said, adding that the games he's headed up "have been recipients of numerous DICE Awards throughout the years." 

Howard has been with Bethesda since the early '90s, beginning as a producer and designer on The Terminator: Future Shock. From there, he did design work on Daggerfall and Skynet in 1996, and then ascended to project leader on The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard in 1998, and Morrowind in 2002. Every major Bethesda RPG since then (which is to say, all of them) bears his name as either executive producer or game director.   

"Todd's impact on his studio, our company, and the gaming industry as a whole has been truly remarkable," Bethesda VP Pete Hines said. "When you look at the very best game developers of all time—the 21 members of the AIAS Hall of Fame—I think Todd deserves to have his name right alongside of them as the best of the best." 

Howard will be joining the likes of Shigeru Miyamoto, Sid Meier, John Carmack, Will Wright, Richard Garriott, Gabe Newell, Hideo Kojima, and numerous other industry luminaries as a member of the HOF. It's an impressive list of names by any measure, and a fitting end to a remarkable year: Howard also earned a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 16th annual GDC, while Fallout 4 claimed the Game of the Year award at the 19th DICE Awards, along with the nod for Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction—another accolade for Howard, who served as game director.   

"Todd is revered by legions of fans not just for his creative leadership over the years but for his humility and humor,” AIAS vice chairman Ted Price said. “Despite the fact that he’s helmed several of the most successful franchises in the history of our industry, he consistently defers praise to others and is the quintessential team player. Yet it’s Todd’s vision and strong direction that has brought Tamriel and the Commonwealth to life for millions around the world."

Howard will be presented with the Hall of Fame Award during a ceremony at the 20th DICE Awards on February 23, 2017, at the Mandalay Convention Center in Las Vegas—ironically, the setting for the one major Bethesda-era Fallout RPG that he didn't work on. 

This week on the Mod Roundup, we've got the best mod for Fallout 4 ever, because it lets you shove Preston Garvey, Mama Murphy, and any other followers or NPCs you don't like. In fact, it's so much fun that the Roundup, which usually consists of a few different mods, is only focusing on the shoving one. Because shoving is great.

It's called Get Out Of My Face, created by modder cdante, and you can find it here at Nexus Mods.

Followers standing to close? Shove 'em. Mutated cow in your way? Shove it. Enemies, too? Yes, shove them! Maybe someone is blocking a doorway, maybe they're just being annoying, or maybe, like me, you're just a cruel and sadistic person. Whatever the reason, give 'em a shove and watch 'em fly. It's as if Skyrim's Fus-Ro-Dah has been imported into Fallout 4. It's fun. A lot of fun.

The mod adds a ranked shoving perk. At Rank 1, you can shove your current follower. Rank 2 adds the ability to shove anyone at any of your settlements, including brahmin. Rank 3 lets you push any friendly NPC, no matter where they are in the game. At Rank 4 it becomes a combat move so you can shove enemies.

To shove someone, simply walk up to them. In addition to the on-screen prompt to speak with them, you'll see a 'Push!' prompt, which is bound to your reload key (typically R). Press it, and watch the target of your ire go flying. In addition to the shoving animation, there's a selection of voiced lines like "Get out of my face!" and "Move!"

The mod is customizable via a holotape you can stick in your Pip-Boy (with the mod installed, you'll find the tape under your 'misc' inventory, at the very bottom of the list). You can turn the push-related dialogue on and off, select the distance at which someone is within shoving range, and you can even choose the force at which you shove someone. The default is set at five, though in the two preceding gifs above you can see it set to 20. Whee!

You can also select the Rank you'd like from your Pip-Boy. I'd suggest turning them all on immediately, because you never know when you'll be in the mood to shove someone. Do you have the Pacify perk? Point your gun at someone, wait until they surrender and raise their arms, and then shove 'em. Frankly, it's hard to think of a situation where shoving someone isn't the perfect move.

Note: shoving currently doesn't work if your character is wearing power armor, but the modder is working on a fix for that.

Just for kicks, I turned the pushing force up to 40 and gave Preston Garvey one more shove (which you can see below). You'd think he'd get the hint, but when he regained consciousness and got to his feet, he came running back over. Guy doesn't know when to quit.

Looking for more Fallout 4 mods? Here's our list of the best ones we could find.

This week on the Mod Roundup, a useful mod for Fallout 4 makes running power lines through your settlements considerably more logical. Also, a series of small tweaks to The Witcher 3 removes some mildly annoying issues. And, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gets changing weather including rain, sandstorms, and fogs.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week. And if you're looking for more mods, check out our lists of the best mods for Fallout 4 and the best mods for The Witcher 3!

Wall Pass-Through Power Conduits, for Fallout 4

Nexus Mods link

Running power lines around your Fallout 4 settlements just got considerably easier with this useful and logical mod created by Daedragon. Since you're building with crummy, rusty metal walls full of holes, or wooden ones that would be easy to make holes in, why can't you run power lines right through them? This mod adds new conduits you can snap into place on the back of standard ones to allow lines to pass through your walls. Works with concrete walls and even roofs.

Nitpicker's Patch, for The Witcher 3

Nexus Mods link

Speaking of little, logical improvements, here are several for The Witcher 3. Play a game a little while, and you may notice a tiny little defect that you find a little annoying. Play for hundreds of hours and it can become a huge, throbbing irritation. Modder chuckcash has fixed a bunch of little details in the celebrated RPG, like clipping errors on armor and sleeves, small water glitches, discolored textures, floating props, and other tiny annoyances. I love mods like this.

Changing Weather Collection, for CS:GO

Steam Workshop link

As we wrote last week, modders Lewis Palfrey and Luke Millanta have brought some interesting changes to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Ten different weather patterns, randomly selected at the start of each round, can enhance four different maps (Dust 2, Cache, Mirage, and Overpass), bringing thunderstorms, heavy rain, sandstorms, and thick fog to the game. In addition to having an impact on visibility and sound, rain can also put out fires.

If you've ever wanted to see the inhabitants of Skyrim or Fallout 4 wage war in a way that's reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings' penultimate battle, then Neil "Cosmic Contrarian" Hendry has what you need. The committed YouTuber spends much of his time creating ludicrous battles between thousands of NPCs from Skyrim and Fallout 4. 

Perhaps his largest war was when 30,000 Deathclaws went up against 300 Brotherhood of Steel soldiers (above). These battles have accrued millions of views on YouTube, something that Cosmic Contrarian is happy to see for something he's always loved doing.

"I remember a long time ago, when I was maybe eight or nine years old, I played Age of Empires 2, and I'd use the map editor to place a lot of units down and have them fight it out in a real battle," he told me. "The map editor for that game was really innovative at the time; after creating the terrain you could fill the map with war elephants vs cataphracts as an example of the crazy stuff you could make.

"The reason I make battles as large as possible is that the more things that are going on at once, the more likely something novel or unexpected will occur," he continued.

Cosmic explained his process of turning wars into cinematic showpieces to me, which he says is "fairly simple." Using his 100 Dragons vs 1000 Imperial Archers video as an example, he says he first has to test NPC types in small numbers to observe what they do in combat and make sure the two sides will actually interact with each other. Next up for Cosmic is picking a location.

"Open fields are the hardest because there is a lack of structure, so you have no idea where to put the camera," he explained. "A fort, like in the video, is much easier to film around; there is already architecture and a clear attacker versus defender perspective that is obvious to the audience—Imperial archers in the castle, with dragons attacking all around and above it." 

Once he's got his location picked, he moves all of the characters into the space and makes a save file to ensure he's safe in the event of a crash. Then he's off to the races: the NPCs start attacking each other, and he rolls the camera, using dev console commands 'tai' and 'tcai' to pause the action and switch angles.

"Then when I have a good, new angle, I can resume the battle, much like how a movie is shot," he explained. "Yes, it takes forever, but I love making these videos, so I don't mind."

Since Cosmic doesn't have the control that a Hollywood director has over their movie, his angles and shots are purely instinctual. He places the camera in a nice spot, hoping for something exciting to happen. He noted that because characters in both Skyrim and Fallout 4 react in emergent ways, it makes for some "really awesome moments." One example of placing the camera in the right place at the right time comes from his 20,000 Robots versus the Commonwealth video (below), in which a Minuteman jumps over a barricade "like a badass" to join the fray.

"I just do what feels right, and that seems to work well for the experience," he said.

As for how long a video usually takes him, Cosmic told me that shooting takes around nine to ten hours, while editing can take up to 10 times the recording time. The aforementioned video that stars the badass Minuteman took him 120 hours across three weeks to complete. That may seem like too much time to devote to a single video for some, but Cosmic says he's encouraged to put in the effort to make wars that people enjoy.

"The only goal I really have is to make content that people enjoy," he said. "A lot of YouTubers are obsessed with releasing a video a day or two videos a day because Pewdiepie does it. They have artificial video quotas to meet, which is fine for them, but in my experience the less videos you release the more views you get, assuming you invest your energy in one video instead of ten.

"Personally, I'd rather have one video that people enjoy instead of hundreds that no one enjoys."

In addition to his huge battles, Cosmic Contrarian spends time making "high-skill" videos that mostly revolve around him executing impressive kills in the Dishonored games. We recently reported on his latest video, in which he kills Dishonored 2's clockwork inventor Kirin Jindosh in 80 different ways.

It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that Bethesda Softworks is "trying the VR thing now," as Todd Howard put it in a recent interview with Glixel, but the scope of its ambitions sound... well, very ambitious indeed. When asked if the studio is "trying to put all of Fallout 4 in VR," he answered bluntly, "We definitely are."

"That's the promise of VR, being in a big virtual world. The core experience, meaning you put on the headset and you're standing in the world of Fallout and can go where you want, just that little bit is every bit as cool as you hope it would be," Howard said. "Once we did that, we were like, 'OK, we gotta see where this goes'."

The size of the VR marketplace and potential sales aren't really a concern, he continued. "That will all sort itself out. We have an opportunity to make something really unique. We'd rather do that than make some other tiny experience. I don't think that's what people want from us."

He's right, of course, and that makes the indifference to potential sales come off as perhaps a bit disingenuous: A full-on Fallout 4 VR game would almost inevitably sell like gangbusters, and probably drive no small amount of VR hardware sales in the process. And even though the marketplace is very niche right now, Howard said that the success of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, the most recent entry in Bethesda's other blockbuster RPG franchise, suggested that those worlds could actually have an appeal that goes well beyond the conventional videogame audience.

"It did make us aware that some of the things we do speak to people who don't traditionally play games, or don't traditionally play role-playing games," he said. "They make it their own experience, and that was what was most important to us. Putting somebody in a world where they can do what they want. I think that's what's special about video games as entertainment."

A new trailer for Fallout: The Frontier, a total conversion for Fallout: New Vegas just dropped, and even if it doesn't live up to the variety and scope of what's implied in the trailer, I'm so happy it exists. Set to a melodramatic and inspiring Murakami cover, the trailer is a wild montage of icy post-apocalyptic Portland, low-gravity space combat, rusty and spiked Mad Max car gangs, and exploding tanks. For a mod to a game that's over six years old, it's pretty damn cool.

The Frontier appears to be leaning into Fallout's large scale battles, which we've abused aplenty using console commands. But with some new variables like vehicle combat and an active weapon-modding system, large scale combat has potential to be more than two massive waves of bodies fumbling around until one plops down before the other. In combination with a hit indicator modand a live weapon modification mod, the combat feels even more lively. VATS? More like nah-TS. I'm sorry.

It's enough to make it look like an entirely new game, of a similar scale to Enderal, a recent total conversion for Skyrim that we were pretty impressed with. There's just no set release date for The Frontier, which makes sense. These are typically passion projects from people that can only work on them in their spare time, but to ease up on the mystery the development team recently opened up a Discord channel to chat about the game as it's developed, and everyone's invited.

Whenever The Frontier eventually releases, you can be sure we'll play it and let you know whether it's worth the time, but until that happens, have a gander at the development videos below that show off a few of the new systems and locations in combination with a few standalone mods. The quick loot system looks extremely convenient.

This week on The Collection of Somewhat Recent Mods You May Or May Not Have Seen For PC Games colloquially known as the Mod Roundup we've got a mod for Fallout 4 that chucks out the quests and missions and gives you a straight-up, deadly-as-butt survival experience. There's also a mod for Stellaris that transforms the galaxy into the extended Star Wars universe, complete with Sith and Jedi. But wait, there's more! A Skyrim mod adds and improves over 100 merchants like farmers, chefs, sailors, hunters, and even bards, giving you many more NPCs to trade with.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Frost Survival Simulator, for Fallout 4

Nexus Mods link

If you're looking for a real survival experience in Fallout 4, let me direct you to the Frost mod. It turns Bethesda's RPG into a freeform survival game set just after the bombs have dropped: forget quests and factions, your goal is simply to survive in an extremely deadly environment. Most NPCs have been removed, there are new and deadlier enemies to battle, and you can't even venture to the surface without a gas mask or you'll quickly die from radiation, forcing you to stick to the mod's interconnected subway tunnels until you've geared up properly.

Note: this mod is in alpha, and you need to disable all Fallout 4 DLC (if you have it). To start playing, you'll also need to load one of the mod's saved games which starts you out underground (if you spawn topside, you'll croak faster than you can say "War never changes"). Read the instructions here very carefully before installation.

Star Wars: A Galaxy Divided, for Stellaris

Steam Workshop link

Bring the expanded Star Wars universe into the Stellaris galaxy. With a static universe based on Star Wars Legends canon, you'll find a static universe with 875 systems and accurately placed and named planets. It also features Sith, Republic, Jedi, and Mandalorian namelists, and yes, there are plans to add Ewoks in the future. Yub nub.

Immersive Merchandising, for Skyrim

Nexus Mods link

If it ever bothered you that farmers, mill owners, and mine owners couldn't trade with you, despite you being able to use their facilities, this mod answers that and more by adding and improving 150 merchants. Now you'll find all sorts of people to trade with including farmers, mill owners, chefs, jewelers, hunters, fishermen, sailors, and even priests and bards. Plus, the East Empire Trading Company, which despite being a massive merchant organization only has crappy merchandise on hand in the vanilla game, now has a vastly improved stock of high-end items to choose from.

Looking for more mods? We've got them. Check out the best mods for Skyrim and the best mods for Fallout 4.

This week on our Mod Roundup, the shoulder-mounted lamp from the sci-fi horror classic Aliens gets modded into Fallout 4, letting you stalk the wastes like a real Marine. Also, a Galaxy Note 7 is modded into GTA 5 not to be used as a phone, but as a bomb. Finally, a modder digs out some unused buildings from the files of No Man's Sky and restores them to the game, giving you a few more alien structures to admire.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

TNR Shoulder Lamp, for Fallout 4

Nexus Mods link

If you're not a huge fan of the Pip-Boy's flashlight function, which provides a somewhat uninspiring general glow to your surroundings, now you can use the same shoulder-mounted lamp the Marines use in the film Aliens. I think you'll agree: it's way cooler with volumetric lighting and dynamic shadows. What's more, it can both be purchased from vendors or crafted at a chemistry table. You can also craft different colored lights for it at an armor workbench.

Perfectly Procedural Buildings, for No Man's Sky

Download link

Modders haven't given up on trying to mold No Man's Sky into the game they hoped it would be. This mod digs up a number of buildings we saw in early screenshots that exist in the game's files but were never actually used, and restores them to the galaxy. Now you'll have some cool new structures to gawk at while you're jetpacking around a planet's surface.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 [Bomb], for GTA 5

Download link

It's not a great time for smartphones, what with the iPhone doing away with headphone jacks and the Galaxy Note 7, you know, exploding. This mod for GTA 5 embraces Samsung's defective device and uses it as a replacement for the existing sticky bomb. You can even change the phone's color and wallpaper before you use it to blow up someone's car.

Looking for more mods? Check out our lists of the best mods for Fallout 4 and the best mods for GTA 5.

This week on the Mod Roundup, a Fallout 4 mod connects almost all of the game's subway stations with a network of tunnels, giving you a new way to travel the wasteland. Also, an ancient Half-Life multiplayer mod resurfaces, and a mod for No Man's Sky makes it easier to summon your ship while wandering a planet's surface.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Subway Runner, for Fallout 4

Download link

Looking for an alternate route through Fallout 4's wasteland? Head underground. This mod connects most of the world's subway stations with tunnels, giving you a subterranean travel option. The tunnels aren't empty, naturally, but are populated with ghouls, raiders, and mutants some would describe as super. They will have to be dealt with before you can travel safely, and once you clear them out they won't repopulate. You'll also find some beds down in the tunnels, if you're a survival mode enthusiast.

Threewave, for Half-Life

Download link (Mediafire)

It took a little time roughly 13 years but a Half-Life multiplayer mod has resurfaced. Threewave, originally a Quake mod, was found in an unfinished state as part of the 2003 Valve server hack. It's been re-discovered and patched into a playable state. You can watch an informative Valve News Network video about the history of Threewave here.

Thanks to Ars Technica.

More landing pads, for No Man's Sky

Download link

Some mods just make you say "Ahhh, thank you." Like this one, which adds more... I don't know what they're called, exactly. Those things you can summon your ship with using a bypass chip. In vanilla No Man's Sky, wandering far from your ship is a dubious prospect, because if you can't find one of those things you wind up having to wander all the way back. More things equals more wandering equals more freedom. Good stuff.

Looking for more mods? I am willing to bet you are. Check out our list of the best mods for No Man's Sky and the best mods for Fallout 4.

I've just finished playing Nvidia's Vault 1080 mod Note: I played it with another mod that makes it more lore-friendly by changing all the 1080 references to simply 80. Also note: I played it with my GeForce 980. Anyway, it's not a bad little mod at all: Nvidia created a creepy vault inside a spooky church, and did a nice job with the set dressing and monster placement. There are some legit scares down there.

Obviously, the real reason for the mod is for Nvidia to show off its indoor god rays, and that it does. The mod team really didn't pass up a single opportunity to shine their tech into your eyes, and as a result there's a certain lack of subtlety to the affair. I've collected images of some of the light placements to judge the logical ones and the times they went a little too far in showing off their tech.

Okay, I easily give them this one. Entering a vault, even a vault modded in by a graphics card manufacturer, is a cool and intimidating moment, and the rays shining from within the massive broken door are entirely suitable and logical. It looks cool.

Subtlety Rating: 9 (Remember, we're ranking subtlety, so the higher the number, the more subtle it is.)

I feel this is fair. Vault 80 (I'm using the lore-friendly name) has been the site of a pillaging attempt by raiders. Raiders are dumb and greedy, and would probably yank a bunch of cables out of the walls like the stupid brutes they are. Some of those cables might wind up hanging in front of a light. I could see that happening.

Subtlety rating: 8

Safety-wise, I'm not sure this is a great idea. When people are walking around in the dark on a raised metal platform, they'll be looking down to insure they don't fall off and plunge to their death. It's probably not a great idea to shine a bright light through the floor directly into their eyes, even if you want to impress them with how awesome the light looks.

Subtlety rating: 4

People read in bed. I certainly do. And that's not all I do in bed, if you know what I mean! What I mean is, I also morosely contemplate my inevitable death on a nightly basis. And whether reading or fearing the fast-approaching eternal void, I do like to have a light on. A light next to a bed makes sense. A single light, mounted at floor-level, for two bunk beds, though? No one can read like that.

Subtlety rating: 4

Night-lights are important for babies who are afraid of the dark, but shining a high-grade construction site quality dual halogen worklight directly through the crib will probably mess up the poor tot's REM sleep. I daresay someone is trying to show off.

Subtlety rating: 2

I'm fine with this.

Subtlety rating: 8

Are wheelchair users sick of seeing wheelchairs used as horror props? I have to assume they must be. Why is a wheelchair considered scary? It's just a device for getting around. If you see an empty car parked somewhere you don't consider it scary or every trip through a parking lot would turn into The Blair Witch Project. What does an empty wheelchair signify? That someone or something got out of the wheelchair and walked away? Even if that something was a monster, it should be a cause for celebration.

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. Not subtle.

Subtlety rating: 0

I'm torn with this one. It's not even remotely subtle, casting a light through a rotating fan at floor level so it casts moving rays and shadows. But it's still cool and looks really nice. Alas, I'm rating subtlety and not nice-fan-ness. My hands are tied.

Subtlety rating: 2

This one seems just fine. A desk lamp has been knocked over and is shining through a louvered office window and into a hallway. That's perfectly subtle and great. But if you look really closely, you'll notice the light isn't even technically on. The bulb is dark, yet is still emitting the Rays of God. It's a miracle! Just not a subtle one.

Subtlety rating: 2

It's better than shining a light directly through a crib, anyway.

Subtlety rating: 6

Okay. Come on. Come on, now.

Really.

Subtlety rating: -14

At this point even God is like, "Enough with My rays, Nvidia. We get it. Everyone gets it."

Subtlety rating: 1