Bathesda games director and producer Todd Howard has a hidden cameo in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered but only certain players will be able to meet him.
Many would describe The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered as more of a remake than a remaster, thanks to its upgraded graphics and numerous changes to the combat and user interface.
Bethesda insists, however, that it’s not a remake, since the goal was to recreate ‘the original game […] as you remember playing it, but seen through today’s technology.’
As such, many of the original Oblivion’s quirkier aspects, like the weird facial animations and various bugs, have remained intact. Recently, it’s been discovered this also includes the secret cameo by executive producer Todd Howard.
Diehard Elder Scrolls fans are no doubt already familiar with Howard’s cameo and have likely checked to see if it was kept for the remaster, as demonstrated by TerakJK on YouTube.
If you’re interested in experiencing the cameo first-hand, the good news is that it’s not especially difficult to find. The bad news is that it’s only possible on the PC version.
How to find Todd Howard in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered
Todd Howard’s cameo in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is located in a hidden room that’s typically only accessible to developers, since it’s used for testing and debugging purposes.
The only way to access the room yourself is by using console commands on the PC, which are debugging tools that many use to activate cheats. Some of the cheats for the original game still work for Oblivion Remastered, including god mode and flight.
By pressing the ‘~’ button, you can open up a menu to input cheats. Type in the command ‘coc toddtest’, and you’ll be instantly teleported to the testing room where Howard, or rather his character, is.
Howard doesn’t appear as himself in Oblivion, but rather as a character called Alban Corinis, who doesn’t appear in the full game. If you talk to him, he’ll say a line that’s clearly voiced by one of the game’s actual voice actors, but afterwards you’ll be offered a selection of dialogue options.
Click any of these and you’ll hear a line voiced by Howard. Pick surprise, for example, and he’ll say ‘What? I didn’t know that. How could this be?’ in the least surprised tone imaginable.
Obviously, Howard only lent his vocal chops for testing the disposition mechanic, where non-playable characters’ opinions and feelings towards you are reflected by in-game choices, so expecting a genuine performance out of his cameo is perhaps too much.
His character’s disposition does change depending on what dialogue choices you pick though, so you can get Howard to profess his love for you or call you a b******, whichever you find most amusing.
There are more characters to interact with in the room too and there’s another testing room you can explore with the command ‘coc testinghall,’ but there’s unfortunately no way to access any of them on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.