Skyrim Lead admits Bethesda shifting to Unreal would lose 'tech debt', but that 'is not the point'

Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith explains why Bethesda switching to Unreal may not be the upgrade fans think it would be.

[Zombieburger638]

Well after starfield I’m not touching a Bethesda game ever again. Keep your shit engine.

[The_Blue]

Good riddance.

[just_looken]

Though the engine is old that was not the big issue with starfield in fact lets face it tech wise starfield was there best one yet few crashes and it worked.

[isarai]

I dunno, 5 loading screens to get from one planet to another is pretty ridiculous this day and age.

[just_looken]

@isarai

- The story being rushed incomplete even the lead story creator saying they had no time

- walking miles for little to no effort

- horrible companions that complain when you do anything with garbage quest's

- ships still glitch out because the landing pads are built wrong

- ships have collision issues or just break

- If you get caught you can break the xp bar causing a xp debt you can never recover from

- 6 months to get a functional map even basic icons

- stores heck the whole loot system is the worst they made

- without mods you get the your caring to much message asap

- Your spacesuit can glitch out my favorite is jetpacking around with a tshirt

- 30fps on xbox even though the game was made under ms took 7 months to get 60fps patch

-The places they hand made are small un eventful like the western town they make there own guns but never use them or the planet that makes ships but only has 1 factory but 30 npc's waking around no houses/food etc

- no blood swearing minimal violance way less than fallout 4

- a entire planet for vacationing so you can see female models are the same as males

- Choices do not matter and if you steal anything of any value like a drink you get put into a undercover operation.

This is the top of my head i could go on

But yes those loading screen now that is a big issue like for real? who cares about loading screens when you load into a mid game.

[GamingManiac]

I'll still play their games, but just like any EA game, I won't be paying for them lol

[lelo2play]

Sooner or later, all PC AAA games will have Denuvo protection or something similar... I'm surprised Microsoft and Sony PC games still haven't adopted it.

As for not paying for EA games, I doubt it. All their games have Denuvo. Somebody is paying for your games...

[IAMRealHooman]

"Gamebryo is no longer a business, it hasn’t been for a while,” Nesmith said. “But that engine has been constantly tweaked, updated and refined to do exactly the kinds of games that Bethesda makes: The Elder Scrolls, the Fallouts, Starfield. It’s perfectly tuned to that kind of game.”

...........perfect eh? hate to see a suboptimal. So the engine is great? its just the dev's have dated ideas on game mechanics got it.

[Inverno]

The engine is perfect because it's been modified specifically for their games, this is true. Dated game design is a problem across the industry, the industry wants to attract the most casuals. As for how broken their games are, well that's probably just them being incompetent. Switching to U5 probably won't fix their unwillingness to put out a game that isn't jank.

[Armaggedon]

Not incompetence. There is a reason why deva dont make games like Bethesda. They sacrifice stability for sheer variable unpredictablility. The more variables, the more bugs.

[Armaggedon]

Its not dated ideas. There approach feels more game to me than alot of modern stuff. People have just become to stimulation junkies that not entertained if there isnt a cutscene for every choice you make.

[MrCrimson]

Honestly, after playing Cyberpunk, which came out 4 years ago, you really cannot go back to that engine. The games in terms of genre are similar, and one looks and plays like it came out 15 years ago, not four years after this clearly superior game. It's a bit crazy they are even contemplating it.

[Inverno]

Cyberpunk isn't Unreal though, and that game was also an absolute technical mess.

[jwillj2k4]

Time for a new lead

[Lionsguard]

I literally have zero hope for Elder Scrolls 7. Bethesda is just Ubisoft 2.0 now a days.

[lukasmain]

I'm optimistic on ES7. It's more of what they know and it's not in Space.

[raWfodog]

Hmm, ES in Space 🤔

Don’t give them any ideas lol.

[MeatyUrologist]

Yeah this is really sad. Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout are three of my favorite games of all time, but Starfield just felt so dated to me. Terrible game design and very dated architecture. The visuals in that game alternated between looking top tier to looking 3 gens behind every 5 minutes, and don't even get me started on the terrible menus and constant loading screens. As much as I loved those games, I think i am done with Bethesda as well until they join everyone else in the new millennium. Their heads got too big and they thought whatever they sold us we would buy, but they lost their edge.

[Armaggedon]

I hope they dont join everyone in this “new millennium”. The games you speak of dont feel like games, they often feel like interactive movies. The reason starfield would contstantly shift visually is often based on how fondensed and enclosed the area is. They have been soin this since Oblivion. I always noticed how the visuals and lighting in a cave were always so much better than in open areas.

[MeatyUrologist]

By joining this Millenium, Im referring to an updated engine that can handle their vision, not them changing their game philosophy. I still love the go anywhere, do anything, emergent gameplay. Sadly their 25 year old cobbled together game engine cannot handle this vision and Starfield is the perfect example.

In Starfield, the outdoor areas looked like absolute trash despite being low res barren wastelands, were not fully open, and everything requires a loading screen where most games these days are seamless with little or no loading. The characters mostly look like low res clay models with stilted animations, water visuals and effects have not changed aince Oblivion, and other than the individual object physics there is a massive lack of environment interaction. None of the trees or foliage even move or react to wind or touch they are just static props. These things have been standard for at least 10-15 years in games now. I still love their type of game, but just can't deal with the engine limitations anymore.

As a perfect example, I am currently replaying AC Odyssey. Love or hate Ubisoft, but this game is like 6 years old and looks and plays better than Starfield. It has a massive open world, only one initial loading screen, is fully interactive, and has better physics and environments with dynamic weather, time of day etc. Hell you can get in a ship battle in the middle of the ocean, and see enemy bodies fall off turning the ocean red, and get eaten by sharks and as the ship breaks in half and sinks to the bottom, you can jump in swim down watching it settle and stay on the bottom of the ocean while sea life swims around you. That is the kind of emergent interactive gameplay I want to see in a Bethesda game.

[Armaggedon]

@MestyUrologist
You are missing one key variable: Bethesds games are not a standard game. All of these games you mention with interactable foliage, do not have the same level of environmental potential(items with there own physics) or even close to the same potential for pure chaos that a Bethesda game has

The loading screens are not due to the engine not being able to handle the game, its the game taking place in multiple locations that prompts loading.Want proof, go and play Baldurs Gate 3. When going to another location in a different act, you get a loading screen. Keep in mind, that Bethesdas older games, even as early as morrowind didnt even have loading unless you went through a door or something.

Bit of trivia, Larian is almost as old as Bethesda and BG3 usedls a derivative of the divinity engine, very similar to the Creation engine 2 being a derivative. Unreal 5 is also a derivative. Its not the engine. It was never the engine, its the type of game Bethesda makes that is the “problem”. The thing is, no one makes games like Bethesda, so you cant even make a direct comparison sadly. Just being open world doesnt put a game in the same class.

[Tacoboto]

Bethesda owns id with idTech, you'd think they'd have taken advantage of those resources for far more than just... Aiming the guns better in Starfield.

[RaidenBlack]

idTech is very limited ... not even Rage 2 used idTech ... other devs had to modify idTech significantly in order to get their desired level of features i.e Dishonored, Evil Within ... spawning different engine names, resulting from forks.
idTech is purely focused towards fast paced FPS & its world i.e Doom Wolfenstein. Not at all fit for BGS.
This has been discussed many times.

[Armaggedon]

Right tools for the right job. Ids tech wont make the type of games Bethesda makes.

[Tacoboto]

@above

Totally agree with both you - I was more meaning something along the lines of their knowledge & expertise in optimization and efficiency, not idTech itself.

[RaidenBlack]

Yes Starfield's execution is dated ... but seeing how normal less-interactive games perform with UE5, I'd say BGS-esque games with Creation level of object permanence and scripting will run very sluggishly ... maybe they have to forcefully limit the scope/area ... like Obsidian had to do for New Vegas.
Maybe it's a possibility in PS6 gen, a BGS replicated in UE5 ... but this gen seems a bit questionable.
One thing they can do is remake any old title using UE ... to test if it works, by collabing with another team/studio.
This way, their main team/devs won't have to split work and they can also test the waters how feasible UE is from BGS perspective.
That's my take understanding the underwhelming Starfield but also recalling the FO:NV and Skyrim charm.
I definitely don't want future BGS game to limit scope & lose their uniqueness just for switching to UE like any other studio. A modern Skyrim with some jank >> another generic UE RPG. I say a UE BGS game will be very different.

[DivineHand125]

This was an interesting read. Basically, they have already started development of the Elder Scrolls 6 using the creation engine and if they choose to switch to Unreal, it will add further delays as they will have to try to figure out how to modify the engine to do what they are currently doing in creation.

There is also an issue with modders not having the same level of freedom as they do with the current Bethesda titles since they also use the creation engine and are very familiar with it.

My 2 cents is that the creation engine now looks too dated and is too resource-heavy for the current generation. Sure, there will be some growing pains, but it would be very depressing if we get those stiff character models whenever The Elder Scrolls 6 launches in a few years. It will also add insult to injury if it comes out at 30 fps.

[Einhander1972]

I have made some simple mods for Bethesda games, and they are not wrong. The way the games allow modding I don't know how else they would make it. The game is basically just a graphics engine on top of a database.

I don't care what they do since I am not buying anything they make now that they are Microsoft, but people who do play them should hope they don't get forced to use UE5 because that will almost certainly be the end of assessable modding.

[trez1082]

At the time their games were pretty unique with the way you interacted with items and that was part of the charm so I can understand why they’d want to keep it. Nowadays rpgs need more than just interacting with items. Interaction with the world, good to great combat, good story, good to great graphics, those are what they should improve on instead of this “ you can pick anything up”.

[franwex]

Yeah. It’s not like Bethesda has other game engines that may work that don’t cost as much as U5? Oh, that Doom game running on ID Tech 7? Nah. That won’t work on an FPS fetch quest game at all.

Even Modern Warfare game engine may work and it belongs to Microsoft.

[FPS_D3TH]

Unreal doesn’t have the same object physics and object interaction as Creation engine but on the other side of the spectrum, what exactly does this bring to Bethesdas games? It certainly didn’t add much to starfield or interesting enough to carry a game. It’s more of a nostalgic feature of past titles and these devs speak about features and comment on criticisms as if they’re living in the past themselves.

[TheDreamCorridor]

If it's either Steam or Nintendo screwing you over, gamers will gladly pull their pants down and bend over.

They get a free pass for a lot of stuff that would kill other companies reputation.

[badz149]

???
Wrong article? 🤔

[Armaggedon]

I have been telling people for years that changing the engine would not correct the “problem”. The actual problem is that people just dont like Bethesdas games now, because they arent flashy or high in presentation.

[MeatyUrologist]

But by switching to a new engine, wouldn't that give them the possibility to be flashy with good presentation? An open world, go anywhere, do anything game with emergent gameplay, that ALSO has incredible visuals and lifelike characters and animations? That's all I'm asking. I still love their game philosophy I just don't want it to feel like I'm playing Oblivion with a fresh coat of paint. People let them coast for so long Bethesda feels like they can't fail but starfield should have been their wake up call.

[Armaggedon]

It depends on what type of game is desired. Keep in mind, Indiana Jones was an idea spawned by Bethesda studios, but they went to machine games for what was needed to create the game. If they went with a new engine, they would be making games that are fundamentally different from what their empire was built on. And games that are higher in presentation cost gameplay depth. Even BG3 is hyper streamlined compared to Larians previous game, Divinity Original Sin 2. The gameplay depth with that game was unbelievable, but it lacked presentation. Everything comes at a cost

Bethesda dont need a wakeup call, the audience does.

[PassNextquestion]

I'm pretty sure that has been the case since Bill Gates released dos

[Nacho_Z]

It's not news to anyone but they desperately need to bite the bullet and switch to a new engine. You can't keep on frantically polishing the same turd when the rest of the world moved on to much better things long ago. It's wild that they insist on doing so.

[gerbintosh]

"Skyrim Lead admits Bethesda shifting to Unreal would lose 'money' "

FTFY

[isarai]

I actually do not want them to go with Unreal. Unreal is a pretty engine but it's never been, and still isn't suitable for open world games, especially on the scale of an elder scrolls game. They really just need to put the same amount if effort they put into developing the engine as they did when they made the engine, to overhaul or build a new engine. It's like they did it once and somehow lost the ability to ever do it again.

[RiseNShine]

Starfield looks bad compared to almost any average UE5 game and its only going to get worse, their engine has given a good service but now it's behind the times now, it feels like both game design and graphics are being hampered to keep supporting and ancient and dated engine that can only be patched and tweaked so far.

[Armaggedon]

Its not the engine, its the type of game they make. Bethesda are actually more ahead of the curve than people realize.

[gold_drake]

im sorry what?

skyrim and most of those games, came very broken to us. there is no way u can convince me otherwise.

lets not blame a new engine.

[anast]

No one would complain about the graphics if they just made a deep RPG like Morrowind or New Vegas. If Starfield was Morrowind in space, they would have gotten 10s and all the awards even with sh$% graphics. The problem is that they don't want to pay for new tech and they don't want to pay devs to make a deep RPG with a complex decision tree, but they want people to pay full price and spend on microtransactions. People are getting tired of it.

[dveio]

At this day and age, I share absolutely no sympathy anymore with any developer studio out there that's dragging their aged engine technology through every single new game they release or announce.

And I am sick of "improvements" upon old engine source codes. It must be bibles and encyclopedias of codes now in it, with noone being able to look through it anymore, costing them so much performance ressources.

Bethesda could have developed a new engine framework years ago already, they knew what technology is going to be standard after PS4 and Xbox One would be done & gone.

Look at the Decima Engine for instance.

You can bet your ass they've thrown in alot of money developing that engine. But what other option do you have? If you want good tech that's able to put out amazingly smooth and stable running games, you have to put money in it.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is easily outperforming Hellblade 2 technically in my opinion, running this smoothly at this scale with these graphics IS telling.

Don't get me wrong, I am also looking at studios like From Software, or at 2K with their abysmally drilled WWE2k engine.

And UE5. UE5 is an evolving technology.

It introduced features that were far too heavy even for top tier gear, but it still sits in an undergoing process of implementing cleverly written algorithms, actually tailored along current state of technology.

I perceive UE5 as being a 'transitioning engine'. It's their homework engine to get all new sorts of technology being worked and improved on.

I think UE6 is going to be faster around the corner than the next Elder Scrolls will arrive. UE6 won't be a let-go of UE5. It will be the final shape of UE5.

Anyway, as with Starfield, I stopped playing the game after 20 hours in. Because I really was sick of it being another IP that's been mashed into their Creation Engine "2.0". It's no "2.0".

It's v1.2 that whistles from every hole.

[Armaggedon]

Its not the engine thats the “problem”, its the type of games they make. People try so hard to complicate things but it's simple: there is a cost to everything. Want hellblade 2 visuals? Get ready to sacrifice pretty much everything else. Want a game that is immensely larege in scope and number of gameplay systems, get ready for them to be diluted. Everything…comes…at a cost. Will people ever learn this?

[babadivad]

I remember years ago before Star Field launched, (when it was still in development for PS5) that this engine was going to be a problem.

Especially when Todd confirmed Elder Scrolls 6 was being developed on this ancient engine.

Nearly everyone here told me I didn't know what I was talking about. How the Creation Engine is completely different when it clearly isn't.

UE5 isn't going to be the answer. They should have developed and moved away from Gambryo years ago. It's looking bad for Bethesda right now.

[Armaggedon]

They were right, because its not the engine thats the issue. Really think about and look deeper into this, then the true “issue” will be made clear.