'Fallout 76' Shows Bethesda's Engine Has Gone From Meme To Liability

Fallout 76 feels badly aged in the current video game landscape, and that’s due to an old issue, Bethesda’s increasingly creaky engine.

[DarkVoyager]

They need to build a brand new engine from the ground up. Their games look Fallout embarrassing compared to the competition.

[Nitrowolf2]

Their games in general have always been buggy and ugly, and yet that’s the excuse people use as if that’s acceptable for them to continue on as is.

Both reviewers are the fans who defend it are to blame, because why bother fixing something if people are claiming to be alright with it?

[Livingthedream]

I agree their games have never been impressive visually IMO. Character models and animations have been equally terrible IMO, but their gameplay really makes up for it.

[Armaggedon]

I think their games dont look half bad. Certain areas can look a bit washed out, but their games have their moments.

[-Foxtrot]

I remember when it came Fallout 3 they were talking about the use of ladders your character could climb up in the world and Todd said it was something to do with the engine they were using

"One day, we tried to figure out why we wanted ladders so bad because we don't really need them. It just felt like we're game development pussies because we can't do ladders"

https://uk.ign.com/articles...

My point of this is that we're talking about something 10 years ago and still today we have this horrible engine which still can't do something so many other open world games have. Why keep it around? I honestly don't get it.

[Nu]

So basically Fall out is a pussy cat

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

Making a new engine from scratch would take a substantial amount of time and would effectively delay development on their games for at least a year or so (well, that's my estimate anyway). Not excusing them but it would be a large undertaking

[-Foxtrot]

@LucasRuinedChildhood

Their games take ages to come out anyway, it's like 5 years or so between Fallout and Elder Scrolls yet despite this they'd rather help support a crappy looking game like Fallout 76 no one asked for which another studio is contributing to rather then settling down and getting to work on a new engine. They've had years to do it...not like they don't get enough money to build a talented team to get it started at least.

[MrSwankSinatra]

@LucasRuinedChildhood? So what if an engines takes a substantial amount of time? You ever heard of multitasking? Many companies build new engines while still creating games on their old engines till their new engine is finished. Bethesda is just lazy as hell and should've started building a new engine years ago, now they're gonna suffer in this gen and the gens moving forward. While other companies progress, Bethesda will remain stagnant.

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

Jesus. I just looked back and noticed the reaction to my comment. As I said, I wasn't making excuses for them. I want them to move to a new engine. The Creation Engine is plagued with issues. You said, "Why keep it around? I honestly don't get it," so I proceeded to explain why they've avoided moving to a new engine. Simply put, it would be a fuck load of work.

When it comes to games engines, no one creates them from scratch. Programming is iterative. They're in a uniquely bad situation where the core of the engine is so problematic that they actually would need to effectively start from scratch (at least for the core). There may be weird internal politics at play as well with long-time programmers being defensive of their work. "It's always been good enough to make great games. Why change it now?"

[execution17]

Aren't they going to be using a new game engine with Starfield?

[fr0sty]

Honestly, I was disappointed in this engine's visuals the moment I saw it for the first time. It was never great, and there are other, larger scale games that look far better.

[Vegamyster]

I don't even mind how Fallout 4 looks at least on PC (minus the human character models), it's more or less the bugs & performance that suck.

[n1kki6]

The same should be said for rockstar. Both showing their age from a mechanics, control, and gameplay standpoint.

[Psychonaut85]

After Horizon, Spider-Man, and now Red Dead, there's zero excuse for this crap anymore. I think people used to have a lower expectations for graphics because of the size of the world in open world games,(plus the weird tolerance people have always had for Bethesda bugs), but now that others have shown that open world games can be gorgeous maybe Bethesda will finally get held accountable for their games looking and playing like sh!t

[Larrysweet]

Nope itll sell millions u preaching to deaf ears

[Livingthedream]

IMO oblivion looked pretty good for it's time, but they haven't made a huge leap in graphics since then. IMO they have a loooooooong way to go. But if we keep things honest their fanbase is probably still ok with these shirtcomings.

[LemyAtom]

Agreed. I think they got a free pass due to the size and complexity of their game worlds. I do believe they're making a new engine for Starfield though.

[ZaWarudo]

They keep that engine because it's incredibly easy to mod.

[obz]

Bullshit. CD Projekt RED’s engine can be modded easily as well. It’s no excuse.

[King_Noctis]

I hope they throw away their current engine for their next games. It was bad enough in Fallout 4, and now it is worse in Fallout 76.

[Vanfernal]

That's what happens when you keep giving buggy games a free pass and perfect scores across the board.

[DarkVoyager]

Hopefully Fallout 76 flops. Maybe they’ll wake up. They need a new game engine built from the ground up.

[EazyC]

I really think it will, critically speaking at least

[Guyfamily999]

If it flops, they'll probably pin the blame on the wrong things, like release date, or the fallout franchise isn't interesting to people anymore... No way they could reflect and realize that people want a new, stable engine and Bethesda fans aren't interested in an online game like this.

[himdeel]

Lol if it fails they will blame it on no crossplay.

[Cikatriz_ESP]

Perfect scores across the board? What are you basing this on, exactly?

[Vanfernal]

Games like Skyrim and Fallout 3 got praised to high hell with 9-10 scores winning every goty award ever but on a technical level they were a glitchy mess. Any other developer would've been scrutinized for such buggy game engines. But they kept using the same laughable coding over and over because they have never been held accountable for it.

[--bienio--]

Crap. How Old this engine is?? If TES use same engine it will be disappointed.

[obz]

It’s already disappointing.

[Dr4g0]

I remember year fallout 4 came out it looked like a ps3 game compared to all the open world games that released in 2015, metal gear solid 5, witcher 3, and batman arkham knight obliterated it not to mention how buggy it ran during launch...

[obz]

This is absolutely unacceptable especially with TW3, Cyberpunk, Horizon Zero Dawn, RDR, Spider-Man with DRASTICALLY superior engines.

Bethesda isn’t an indie studio, let’s stop treating them as such. They have more than enough resources to build a game on a competent engine.

[MasterCornholio]

Zenimax did buy idtech software who created a really good game engine. I don’t see why they couldn’t use the engine for Bethesda games.

[InTheZoneAC]

I get the feeling that even ES6 won't have a new engine

[Literal_Cringe]

I don't understand why they didn't just use idtech's engine, I mean, they own it for crying out loud, does it have a problem with open world games or something?

[fluxmulder]

It's not just the engine. A lot of their art plain sucks. Poor animations, blurry textures, low detail buildings, bad lighting, etc. I think a lot of their artists are old timers who never bothered to catch up with the times. Bethesda needs to either train these guys up, or hire new artists.

[chris235]

they should have made this a switch exclusive. would have been more fitting than to pollute the real console business with this ugliness.

[Vrabstin]

I like the worlds they make with their engine. If you don't like it so much don't buy it. There's other games that have what you seek.

[Silly gameAr]

That's good advice, and I've been following that advice for years. If it wasn't for Doom and Wolfenstein, Bethesda games would be non existent in my house.

[Cikatriz_ESP]

Remember kids: don’t ask for something you love to be better, just lower your standards. Take the bad with the good or take nothing at all, because progress is hard.

[Vrabstin]

Pretty sure I said don't play it if you don't like what it has to offer. I didn't say lower your standard.

[windblowsagain]

They should have been building a complete new engine while working on the game, or employ others to do so.

[william_cade]

hahhahahaahahah Live service is great!

[gangsta_red]

That engine really had an ugly light shine on it for Fallout 4.

I enjoyed the bugs and glitches in 3 as it made for great comedy, but seeing some of those same issues in Fallout 4 made me question why we waited so long for that game to release. That and I thought the game was terrible.

[Donnie81]

I don't think it looks all that bad. I'm playing on the 1x and it looks ok. I'm not gonna say it is the best looking game around but there are far worse looking games out there. I've played the beta for several hours and I think there's a lot of fallout fans that are gonna enjoy the game. You got people out there that just want to hate on the game without ever playing it

[Kostche]

the only reason betheda are still around is MODS, people do not play them because they are good or bad, its the MODS that give the game that magic, betheda have been riding that free pass for years now for the state their games

[Larrysweet]

There not gonna build a new engine u know y? Cuz you you you are going to buy this shit and play it to death thats y? Its all yalls fault bet ur ass dont buy it theyll fix engine asap but no need to when u get rich of little effort and have ugly buggy mess that sells millions

[Nacho_Z]

It was already rough as a badger's arse in F3 and that was ten years ago. If the next Fallout and ES games don't have a new engine then I can only conclude that Bethesda as an entity has collectively gone insane.

They do some things really well but their quality control is embarrassing by any standard.

[Armaggedon]

Fallout 76 is a filler game. If you look at it, what have they done with it that is leap forward from Fallout 4? It is literally Fallout 4 with friends and no npcs. This is Bethesdas version of a cash grab/ filler game. We dont even know when Starfield is coming out, and TES 6 is going to take a long time. They are trying to keep us busy while they get things sorted out.

[GameRant]

Good points, rough writing.

[Realms]

Hey Peter Hines how about you focus on rebuilding a new game engine instead of being twitter happy throwing shade at other companies. Maybe sort out your games first then talk smack otherwise you leave a lot of cloth to cut from.

[Profchaos]

I actually think fallout 4 looks better than 76.

[C4rnos]

At this point in time it'll take a very different and new project to truly give them a basis for creating a new engine for their games- and as it's likely the next big thing; why not Starfield?.