This year, Bethesda Softworks is celebrating its 40th anniversary. In honor of the anniversary, the developers decided to share memories of working on various projects.
Players were particularly drawn to the story of the studio’s current design director Alan Nanes, who was responsible for creating companions in Starfield and quests in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
As it turned out, Alan became the first in-house QA tester and was hired by Todd Howard himself. He first encountered Bethesda Softworks at the very end of development on The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Back then, the game was in early beta and Alan was friends with several people from different departments.
Back then, Alan explains, everything was like the “Wild West” and his friends allowed him to come visit (he was not an employee at the time) to play multiplayer games with them and meet other developers.
One day, Todd Howard noticed him and asked if Alan would like to test a new game:
I was sat down in front of a big old CRT television, handed a chunky original Xbox controller, and allowed to explore Vvardenfell. I began jotting down my thoughts in a notebook: playing, taking notes, playing again, taking notes again—and so on.
Soon, Alan noticed that developers had gathered behind him and were watching the playthrough:
They were asking questions like: “So, is this area too tough?” or “Did you understand what is happening in this quest?” and things like that. I could hear them discussing among themselves, sometimes writing down what I was doing, lightheartedly debating whether changes should be made, or just having fun. It was an incredible feeling—for the first time, I felt like I was contributing to the creation of a real video game (I think my name can be found in the Morrowind manual credits under “Special Thanks”).
Later, when this became a regular practice, “Todd Howard and Ashley Cheng seemed to decide that having an in-house QA team right at the studio would be a useful addition.” Ultimately, Alan was hired for this role and became one of the first in-house QA testers at Bethesda.