19 years later, Todd Howard is still a secret NPC in Oblivion Remastered, and he’ll call you a bastard if you piss him off
Oblivion Remastered has some great Easter eggs for players to discover, some of which are in the original 2006 RPG and others that were newly added for the remaster.
For example, the charred remains of Anakin Skywalker can be found in both Oblivion and Oblivion Remastered in a reference to his fight Obi-Wan in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, while the addition of Skyrim’s Throat of the World is obviously new with the remaster.
My favorite, however, falls into the former camp of Easter eggs that were found in the original game and have been preserved and touched up in the remaster. Hidden in a secret test room only accessible by console commands, an NPC with voice lines performed by Bethesda’s Todd Howard can be found hanging out in a small brick house, and you can talk to him, piss him off, and even make him fall in love with you.
According to our tech savvy pals at PC Gamer, to access Todd Howard’s house in Oblivion Remastered you’ll want to first, save your game. Then, open console by hitting the ~ key, and then type: coc toddtest into the input bar. Hit enter and you’ll be transported to a small house with an NPC named Alban Corinis. Interact with him and you’ll be greeted by a voice that definitely isn’t Todd Howard’s, who will say:
“I knew one day someone with unyielding virtue would heed my words and speed my release. You risked much to perform such a selfless act.”
Click past that and you’ll be presented with options representing NPC behavior: Angry, Fear, Happy, Neutral, Sad, and Surprise. Select any of those and you’ll hear Todd Howard expressing those different emotions in very often amusing ways.
As PC Gamer demonstrates, you can piss Todd Howard off by clicking “Angry” continually until his disposition is below 20, then hitting “Neutral” again, and he’ll put you in your place. “You are indeed a bastard,” he’ll say.
If he hurts your feelings, don’t worry, Todd Howard’s pretty easy to win over again. Just hit the “Happy” prompt over and over until you get his Disposition over 90, and he’ll fall head over heels for you and say in a dulcet tone, “I can’t recall ever loving moments, like this moment, with you.”
The acting is laughable, but that’s not a shot at Howard; he probably wasn’t giving his best performance since the lines were meant for testing purposes only. Regardless, of all of the Easter eggs in Oblivion Remastered, my hands-down favorite is seducing Todd Howard… sorry, Todd Howard.
I’ve spent 20 hours playing Oblivion Remastered as an evil tourist, and may have accidentally found the best way to play Bethesda’s liveliest RPG.
