Skyrim, Fallout 4 Director Going Into Gaming Hall of Fame

Having already received a Lifetime Achievement award, it's now been confirmed that Bethesda's Todd Howard will be inducted into a highly regarded gaming Hall of Fame.

The Skyrim and Fallout 4 director has been named as the 22nd inductee to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Science' Hall of Fame. He'll receive the award at the DICE Awards in February 2017.

"I know that many of us in the industry have spent countless hours enthralled in the vast, open worlds that Todd has created," AIAS president Mike Fischer said in a statement. "He's made us all reconsider the player-game relationship and extended the storytelling possibilities of our medium."

As a college student in the early '90s, Howard literally knocked on Bethesda's door to ask for a job. He officially started with the company in 1994, and The Terminator: Future Shock was his first credit at Bethesda.

He was a designer on The Elder Scrolls II -- Daggerfall (1996) and then became a project lead for 1998's The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard, before continuing with the franchise with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Skyrim.

The D.I.C.E. Awards ceremony will be held on February 23, 2017 in Las Vegas. Another Bethesda veteran, marketing executive Pete Hines, will present Howard with the award at the show.

"Todd's impact on his studio, our company, and the gaming industry as a whole has been truly remarkable," Hines said. "When you look at the very best game developers of all time--the 21 members of the AIAS Hall of Fame--I think Todd deserves to have his name right alongside of them as the best of the best."

Previous AIAS Hall of Fame recipients have included people like Hideo Kojima, Leslie Benzies, Tim Sweeney, Gabe Newell, Shigeru Miyamoto, and BioWare founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka.

The nominees for the DICE Awards have not been announced yet. DICE stands for Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain and is not connected to the Battlefield developer DICE.