This past weekend, Final Fantasy 14 fans held LunarCon to commemorate the end of Shadowbringers and to celebrate the beginning of Endwalker. The three day in-game convention was full of special performances, contests and games, and guest appearances. Oh, and a Todd Howard look-alike that passed out copies of Oblivion to guests. Just another casual weekend for the director of Bethesda Studios.
The roaming Todd Howard was spotted by Twitter user @mirihawke who posted about their interaction during the Final Fantasy event. Apparently, the Howard impersonator was just hanging around to trade out faded copies of Oblivion to guests. Mirihawke posted a photo of the in-game Todd Howard along with the item they received from him. The faded copy of Oblivion is an in-game orchestrion scroll that is described as “Timeworn pages of sheet music containing the full score for Oblivion” and sells for 1 gil.
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According to the replies to the post, this is not the only instance of a wild Todd Howard passing out freebies to players. Several people replied with their own Todd Howard story admitting that a Bethesda Director impersonator has done this in the past – with one person claiming they received a mud crab from him awhile back that they still hold on to. You would think that the upcoming Starfield release would keep Mr. Howard too busy to hang around fan-held conventions to pass out promo for his studio’s games.
Unfortunately, a little bit of detective work reveals that this is not the actual Todd Howard trolling the Final Fantasy 14 community. This avatar is the work of user @Tetenuko who has amassed quite the reputation for their uncanny Todd Howard look-a-like. We should have known it was too good to be true, especially with Todd Howard not even making the Guest List for the event. Still, this is a well-done gag and one that is, surprisingly, not that far out of the realm of possibilities.
Sadly, Todd Howard probably has too much on his plate now to partake in any online fun. With Bethesda hard at work on The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield, Mr. Howard just doesn’t have the time to be handing out copies of Oblivion and crabs to a bunch of random people.
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