Ex-Bethesda Veteran Explains Why Games Like ES, Fallout & Starfield Will Always Have Loading Screens

IGN : One former Bethesda developer has cautioned that loading screens will probably always be a part of its games because of the way they're designed. Here's why.

[Obscure_Observer]

Thanks for the insightful information!

Now I wanna see if all those that were complaining about loading screens on Starfield will give a hard pass on both upcoming Bethesda RPGs like TESVI and Fallout 5.

If you can´t stand load screens, stay away from those games. Period!

[-Foxtrot]

I don't think you understand the difference between them though and what makes Starfield and TES / Fallout different when it comes to loading screens.

When you're playing TES or Fallout, if you are doing a mission you have the choice to walk to your objective where on your travels you will run into many different encounters getting completely sidetracked, it's fun as it feels like you are exploring the world more. However with Starfield you don't get that choice because you can't walk to a new planet, the loading screen is more mandatory, even the Outer Worlds fell into this issue, so when you are constantly going to space, travelling from planet to planet there's a lot more loading screens involved where it slowly becomes more tedious in comparison.

What Bethesda needs to do is work on reducing the loading screens and fitting more within it. For example when you enter a town in TES it should load the entire town, houses, castles, sewers etc included, same goes for Fallout, take the Vegas Strip in Fallout New Vegas, it was chopped up into multiple segments where going back and forth doing missions become a chore nearer the end.

[IAMRealHooman]

if they scaled down the "1000" planets to 10, 4 main hub. 6 unexplored, but actually filled with tings to do and explore, the thing Bethesda used to be good at. People like Obscure thin we shit on Bethesda just to shit on it. No we want better games.

[Christopher]

It's a design choice they've chosen. RDR2 kind of proves the whole 'loading interiors' or 'having different events go on' isn't what's stopping it.

[crazyCoconuts]

RDR2 didn't have you walk into a massive structure like a Starfield base/facility though, right? I'm sure log cabins are a lot easier to handle

[Christopher]

That won't affect the need to load content. That's just static designs with a few interactibles. And did we forget RDR2 has towns you don't load into with multiple buildings, dynamic events, and ties to the world as a whole. You load areas to manage the specific scripting and the number of elements that need tracking constantly in that area. Bethesda designs it so you can leave a trail of cheese wheels from town to town, RDR2 designs it so the world interactions are randomized by a few factors and come to you.

Like I said, it's a design choice.

[isarai]

Ok but you can still have more seamless "loading screens" starfield has no excuse for how much its gameplay flow sucks. You're basically saying it will always suck because we don't want to spend the effort on improving that aspect. Hell every open world survival game has object permanence, from valheim to the forest, and that doesn't have tons of loading screens

[anast]

These guys/gals are sleazy.

[DivineHand125]

I haven't played oblivion as yet but does it have loading screens? No one is talking about it.

Fun fact, the remastered version of days gone still has loading screens. It is not the instant load like you see on PS5 and series titles but you will have to wait a bit to load into certain sections. I am not sure why they didn't polish them out and no one is talking about it.

[victorMaje]

Oblivion has loading screens but it’s nowhere near the wait times it used to be (from what I remember) so the whole experience feels a lot better.

Agreed about Days Gone remastered, it definitely feels like it’s mostly a visual & feel (dualsense) remaster without much focus on optimization (I expected no loading times & in some cases I encountered the same kinds of bugs & audio issues that were on PS4).

Still love the game though & I hope the remaster will help pave the way for DG2.

[Christopher]

That's not something you can do without remaking the whole game from scratch. It's a remaster, not a Remake. They aren't changing the core code and methods, only updating graphics and using more modern plug-ins for similar graphical enhancements.

To do what you're describing, they would have to do something like what Square did for FFVII Remake. And that was such a huge undertaking that they couldn't do it all at once.

[staticall]

What a bunch of excuses. There are a ton of open world games that don't have many or any loading screens and they are complex and have complex (even world-altering) events going on. Not only AAA games, like Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, Witcher 3, GTA V and so on; even Metal Gear Solid games, old Far Cry, Saints Row, Assassin's Creed, Death Stranding, you name it (although, you can argue that they're not that complex). But even indie games made by a few people (or even just a single one), like Kenshi, Shadow of Doubt and so on, can have no or minimal loading screens (only when necessary). And they also have «track of item placement and physics states after the player leaves an area, which helps create the sense of leaving a permanent mark on the virtual world.» (especially true for Kenshi). Bethesda games are notorious for their loading screens and with Starfield, they've dialed that to 11.

I think, the problem is not only their engine, it has noticable limitations and weird behavior, but they're so used to it, have so many prebuild systems, that they can't just switch easily - management won't allow it. But also the staff probably too used to the Creation Engine and its quirks, that they can't think «outside of it» (if that makes sense), they're like a hostage of CE, every problem has to be working on CE and fit its featureset.

I got that feeling mostly after reading this quote: «I can’t have the interiors of all these places loaded at the same time as the exteriors. That’s just not an option. And all the fancy tricks for streaming and loading and all that, you end up with hitching. So you’re actually better off stopping the game briefly, doing a loading screen and then continuing on.». Who ever loads everything at the same time? No device will have that much memory. Other games can stream interiors without any issues but for Bethesda, it's not feasible.