Past, Present and Future, Demon Souls Guidance

Todd Howard on past, present and future

Todd Howard appeared in the Develop: Brighton online conference and had an informal chat about his history at the studio.

His first project at Bethesda was the CD-ROM version of The Elder Scrolls: Arena, and the next was The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. Arena was the first game to feature the fantasy world Tamriel, but most of the series' signature systems – like the progress system based on what skills you use – was introduced in Daggerfall.

Dream big: “Certain things can seem primitive through the lens of time and technology but we were doing similar things to what we're doing now, believe it or not," said Howard. "Even though the scale has increased, what we were doing in comparison to other games really hasn't."

All or nothing: Bethesda's success hasn't been without its hitches: at one point, the studio “probably went down to six people,” he said, and it was at that point they “had no fear.” They created The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and it sold way better than they had dared to hope. Now Bethesda is working on the next Elder Scrolls game, as well as a science-fiction RPG named Starfield.

What is the name of the first character you meet in Morrowind?

a) Fargoth
b) Jiub
c) Caius Cosades
d) Sellus Gravius

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today's issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Some titillating options got left out

Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters featured some creative copy-protection: If the string “konami” could not be found in the console’s video memory, the final fight against Shredder would become way harder.

The option was absent from the international version, and the occidental heroine was most likely modelled after the concept art featured in the art book Xenoblade X: The Secret File.

Join our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today's fact.

Shakeup in Go Battle League’s 6th season

Niantic is planning to make some big changes for the sixth season of the Pokémon Go Battle League, while the next Pokémon Masters EX event is all about Poison and Psychic eggs.

Pokémon GO

• Go Battle League – Season 5
  • Begins on November 9th at 21:00 UTC
  • Little Cup from November 9th until November 16th
  • Kanto Cup from November 16th until November 23rd
  • Catch Cup from November 23rd until November 30th
  • Not necessary to walk to participate in Battle League
  • Earn a Legendary Pokémon at rank 7 and Pikachu Libre at rank 10
  • Ranking is decided by battle victories
• GoO Battle League – Future Season 6
  • Rank count up from 10 to 24, first twenty earned with victories
  • Top 4 ranks based on rating: Elite, Veteran, Master and Battle Legend
  • Niantic is planning major esports-style event

Pokémon Masters EX

• Poison and Psychic Egg event begins on November 10th
• Introduces Sync Pairs Grimer, Abra and Exeggcute with Main Character

Pokémon Sword & Shield

• Wild Area Event has shifted
• Ghost and Dark-type Pokémon leave boosted raids
• Bug and Poison-type Pokémon as well as Gigantamax Butterfree and Garbodor added

Help is on the way in new Demon’s Souls

If you get stuck in the Demon’s Souls remake (and you will), you will have almost 200 videos to help you figure out how to progress.

According to creative director Gavin Moore, BluePoint Games is working to make sure that there are over 180 videos to help players get through the brutal dungeon crawler. They will be presented via the PlayStation 5's new activities UI, which helps you keep track of your progress and also offers hints.

Ambitious remake: The remake will feature new art and lets you pick between higher resolution or higher frame rate. The healing and World Tendency systems are also getting overhauled.

Launch title: The original Demon's Souls was developed by FromSoftware, and spawned the popular Dark Souls series as well as bringing mercilessly difficult and opaque games back in vogue. Demon's Souls Remake launches alongside PlayStation 5 worldwide.

• Resident Evil Village features ray tracing and 3D audio as well as DualSense enhancements
• Apple TV will be available on Xbox Series X alongside other streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting chilly in the recently announced autumn update
• The top 15 downloaded games for Switch in October announced and Hades actually beats Super Mario 3D All-Stars
• Amazon packages will randomly be delivered in Mario-themed boxes throughout November in unusual cross-promotion

To celebrate the start of a new generation of console gaming we are giving away a new PlayStation 5 to one lucky DailyBits reader. You can find out more about this giveaway on our dedicated page.

Here’s the Giveaway Code for Week 45: 8090

What is the name of the first character you meet in Morrowind?

ANSWER: Jiub!

Morrowind is full of memorable characters, and practically everyone remembers Jiub. He is a fellow prisoner and wakes you up at the start of the game, and asks you your name – and then your adventure begins. Although you never see Jiub again in Morrowind, there are references to him in Oblivion.

He apparently became a saint after driving the cliff racers from Morrowind. He also appears as a ghost in the Skyrim expansion Dawnguard, and asks you to help him gather pages from his great work “The Rise and Fall of Saint Jiub the Eradicator Hero of Morrowind and Savior of the Dunmer”. Truly an inspiring rags-to-riches story.

Today's issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey.

We hope you've enjoyed today's issue DailyBits! Please feel free to send any feedback over to [email protected]. Thank You!