Talk about timing. The last time Microsoft launched a console, Bethesda Softworks delivered the first major role-playing game for it. That game was The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a sprawling RPG that let you explore a massive continent and follow your own path. Now with Microsoft preparing to deliver the Xbox 360 this year, Bethesda looks to deliver the first major role-playing game for that platform, in the form of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Like before, you'll get to explore a massive world and follow your own path, but this time, you'll get to do so with a graphical fidelity that was only dreamed of before. Eye candy aside, there are a lot of gameplay improvements in Oblivion as well, and we caught up with producer Todd Howard for the details being released at E3.

Get ready to strap on the armor; it's time to go kill some monsters.

GameSpot: Could you give us an update on Oblivion's progress? What's on display at E3?

Todd Howard: We're in the final phases of development. Most of the content is in the game, and we're trying to polish it all up. We'll show off all the major features of the game behind closed doors at E3. It's a hard game to boil down to a short demo, but I think we've got something people will enjoy and hopefully come away with a good idea of what we're tying to accomplish.

GS: What is the current state of the world of Tamriel in development and production? We know the world will be huge; how much of it is done? What kind of environments will we eventually see beyond the very impressive-looking forests shown in the early screenshots?

TH: The majority of it is built. Actually, the whole thing is built, but we're going through and doing our "clutter pass." That's where we drop in all the stuff, like books, weapons, and thousands of forks and plates. We're big fans of world clutter. Forest covers about half the game's space, but even within the forest we have subregions of more tropical-based stuff going up to colder, more conifer-laden areas.

GS: Now that we're here at E3, what can you tell us about the game's quest system and overall gameplay direction? How will quests keep players from wandering off the beaten path and potentially losing track of what they're supposed to do? How will other features, such as the compass, help with this, and how will they be integrated with quests? Will there be a book-style quest log like the one in Morrowind, as well as hand-drawn maps? Or will there be more-streamlined quest logs and in-game maps that can be sorted by area and modified with player notes?

Your main quest will be to defeat demons that have destroyed towns and villages.

TH: The game's quest log is broken up by quest, so you see all your active and completed quests and what you have to accomplish next on that quest. It's much more like the systems that are becoming common in games like Jade Empire or World of Warcraft. You can select any quest, and for the most part, it will highlight on the map exactly where you need to go to accomplish the next step. This mark is also noted on your compass. Some quests have hidden goals, such as "find the secret cave," and that would not be marked. So we only mark things we want you to know about. For instance, someone gives you a quest to go to the fighter's guild. The guild is instantly marked on your compass and the map as your quest target, so you can just walk to it without checking over any directions or maps. For the most part, you can follow quests by just following your compass. Again, many quests have alternate paths and secret parts, where nothing gets marked, and that's open for you to discover.