Did someone actually make Todd Howard in Starfield?

During the Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023 stream, two cool dudes—Todd Howard and Geoff Keighley—stood on stage and discussed Starfield.

“People have been wondering what the main questline is going to be after you create your character,” Geoff explained to Todd, highlighting the deep character customization system in Starfield. “I saw even someone on the internet this week created you I think, did you see that? Someone tweeted out a picture that they had somehow figured out to get you in there.”

Todd laughed, then followed up with “I see a lot of things on the internet…I’m not sure that’s real.”

So that got me wondering: Did someone actually make Todd Howard in Starfield? After doing some searching, I was able to find this image of what appeared to be a pretty accurate portrayal of Todd Howard in Starfield:

It looks like Todd Howard was right

As great as it looks, Todd Howard was right. It’s not real. Even though it may look like a detailed version of Todd Howard in Starfield, it’s just a fake. More than likely just a really good Photoshop. As @FabianoLPeres on Twitter pointed out, the hair shaders that we’ve seen from videos highlighting the character creation simply do not match up. Don’t get me wrong, the hair shaders look great and very detailed—but not to this extreme.

Also, the Twitter user that first posted the Todd Howard in Starfield image, @Sergioodoardi, has posted another Starfield character creation fake: Commander Shepard from Mass Effect. However, in this image, it’s a lot more obvious that this is just intended as a funny photoshop.

With the Early Access launch of Starfield rapidly approaching, it won’t be long until we start seeing some cool creations. I’m sure we’ll end up seeing a pretty solid depiction of Todd Howard after all.

Starfield releases on PC and Xbox Series X|S on September 6. It will also be on Xbox Game Pass.