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[GymWolf]

Making games of this scale and complexity with a relatively small AAA team comes at a price, namely jank and mediocre graphics. But people are willing to pay that price for the immersion the games provide.

That's my question, why staying with a small team if you are under microsoft?

I think most people were hoping for less jank from bethesda after the acquisition, because if not, what was even the point?

 

[Heisenberg007]

That's my question, why staying with a small team if you are under microsoft?

I think most people were hoping for less jank from bethesda after the acquisition, because if not, what was even the point?

 

[Banjo64]

I think Bethesda Game Studios and their engine are one of the best things about this industry. Starfield is going to be fantastic, I just hope they immediately ramp up development on TES 6 as soon as Starfield ships.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

That's my question, why staying with a small team if you are under microsoft?

I think most people were hoping for less jank from bethesda after the acquisition, because if not, what was even the point?

Allegedly it's part of the company's culture. They want to "punch above their weight" so to speak, they feel like it makes them more ambitious.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Making games of this scale and complexity with a relatively small AAA team comes at a price, namely jank and mediocre graphics. But people are willing to pay that price for the immersion the games provide.

If the space combat is as good as shown (I loved the sound too) without it crashing every five seconds, i'm in without a doubt.

 

[GymWolf]

Allegedly it's part of the company's culture. They want to "punch above their weight" so to speak, they feel like it makes them more ambitious.

No offense, but when modders have to fix literally every game you release, this company culture sound like some pretentious bullshit.

More beta testing or hiring someone to make better combat or animations are not gonna make the game any less ambitious unless you have fucked up management.

 

[Crane]

Dont worry in 2 years it will be Ue5 in 80% of the games.

 

[kyussman]

Yea,the engine does do lots of great things other engines don't.I'll be honest though,when Microsoft came in I was expecting them to greenlight a brand new engine for Bethesda,like a Creation 2.0.It's long overdue and with Microsoft money behind them now I thought things like this would be a given.

 

[DerivedDataCache]

That's my question, why staying with a small team if you are under microsoft?

I think most people were hoping for less jank from bethesda after the acquisition, because if not, what was even the point?

Yea,the engine does do lots of great things other engines don't.I'll be honest though,when Microsoft came in I was expecting them to greenlight a brand new engine for Bethesda,like a Creation 2.0.It's long overdue and with Microsoft money behind them now I thought things like this would be a given.

Theyve been bought by Microsoft a year ago. An engine switch/upgrade doesnt happen overnight. Maybe for their next project.
Starfield probably been in development since Fallout 4. Fallout 76 was probably done by another branch on the studio.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

Plenty of time with the amount of staff Bethesda and Microsoft have. Don't forget they're part of Xbox and Microsoft now. We know full well Microsoft will send every person they need to send down there from their Advanced Technology Group to get this thing looking and running as nice as humanely possible.

The deal is not finalized. So from what I understand MS teams can’t just work on it just because MS wants them to do it.

Edit. This was the Bethesda deal. Mixed that up with Blizzard Acti. Never mind.

 

[StealthGoblin]

I can’t say this engine has much going for it at all. It is known to be one of the buggiest around, and despite being told it was getting an upgrade, Starfield looks really quite unimpressive for a next-gen only game. It looks like Bethesda is falling further behind the curve and is trapped in a cycle of adding bloat, rather than producing refined games.

The amount of planets used as one of their big reveals is definitely more a negative for me than a positive. I’d much rather something more crafted and polished.

 

[Markio128]

My only worries from the demo are first with the framerate, which seemed to run at a non-stable 30fps, along with the combat which showed none of the fun you could have with either Skyrim, or Fallout 4.
They could sort out the framerate, and I do hope they have a 60fps mode, considering games are unplayable these days at 30fps (not my words). But the combat? It just looked a bit ropey; no blood/gore a la Fallout, or hilarity a la Skyrim.

 

[El Pistolero]

They got creation engine looking pretty fucking fabulous if I do say so myself. Watch it on an LG C1/CX or any OLED and tell me I'm wrong about how insanely good this game looks. It's a massive leap over any game they've ever made. Todd wasn't bullshitting this time. This literally is a jump as big or bigger than the one when they first moved to Oblivion.

It looks next gen as fuck. It literally looks up there with Cyberpunk 2077 if not better due to the massive diversity of it all. It literally looks that damn good, and this is a Bethesda RPG we are talking about.

I pray it looks this good when it hits Series X come launch day.

 

[Gambit2483]

Rdr2 or watch dogs 2 have a lot of interaction between npcs or npcs and protagonist and they don't have to use this crappy engine.

The game remembering if i leave a fork in a dungeon is not a good enough trade off, it becomes a novelty after a while.

Even Horizon Forbidden West 's NPCs blow these...things, out of the water.

NPCs have definitely become one of Creations Engines biggest weaknesses...

 

[Grildon Tundy]

(Is the implication that the acquisition was an inevitable side effect of the steady road towards 100% monopolization of the games industry if MS is left unchecked?)

 

[GymWolf]

Even Horizon Forbidden West 's NPCs blow these...things, out of the water.

NPCs have definitely become one of Creations Engines biggest weaknesses...

Nah, HFW npcs interaction is pretty bare bones.

He is not talking about the chit chat but what you can do when you can move the character freely, you can't even bump and let npcs fall on their ass or kill anyone in horizon, they are super scripted.

That game has other priorities.

 

[Gambit2483]

Nah, HFW npcs interaction is pretty bare bones.

He is not talking about the chit chat but what you can do when you can move the character freely, you can't even bump and let npcs fall on their ass or kill anyone in horizon, they are super scripted.

That game has other priorities.

Maybe there's a trade off on how good an NPC can look/move vs. how much you can interact with them...I guess I'm not that pressed to kill or screw with them (unless it's a Rockstar game)

 

[GermanZepp]

I don't mind the "average" modest looking games, (that's arguable). But i do not want top jank, weightless combat and quest breaking bugs.

 

[GymWolf]

Maybe there's a trade off on how good an NPC can look/move vs. how much you can interact with them...I guess I'm not that pressed to kill or screw with them (unless it's a Rockstar game)

I don't think it's related.

It's more of a game design choice on how much freedom you wanna give to the player, a more stricted story like horizon would never work if you can actually kill important npcs or kill anyone in a village, but you can sorta do that in stuff like piranahabite games.

Some stories would never work with too much freedom, that's why for example sony open world are some of the most non-interactive open world games in terms of npcs interactions.

There is a trade off when you give TOO much freedom to the player and you need some seriously talented writers to have a good open story.

 

[Sosokrates]

And yet, Bethesda has a track record with this engine, going back over a decade, that proves without a doubt that the developers at that studio cannot launch a game using the Creation Engine that runs properly, without an insane amount of bugs, and that doesn't require literal years of modding by the community. Every time BGS launches a game, I see these same nonsensical defenses of their engine, and every damn time, they launch a ridiculously broken game.

I dont think anyone is denying that BGS has bugs and some performance issues, its simply just a theory for why they are still using it.
The point is despite BGS games issues, it may be the case that they would not be able to make the type of games they make without the creation engine.

 

[Croatoan]

Everything done in Creation Engine can be done in UE4/5. They use it because they are familiar with it and dont want to pay to use another or build another from scratch.

 

[Razvedka]

edit: wrong thread.

 

[PumpkinPie]

Surely somebody somewhere can make a similar, better engine. It can't just be a one-off miracle.

 

[CuteFaceJay]

Is this why Starfield looked like it was 30FPS?

 

[IntentionalPun]

People continue to care way too much about graphics.. I kinda just can't comprehend the attitude of some people. They see a games graphics and setting and think that's "the game" while ignoring everything else about it.

Really just have to get over it though if you are a Bethesda RPG fan.

 

[Helghan]

Maybe there's a trade off on how good an NPC can look/move vs. how much you can interact with them...I guess I'm not that pressed to kill or screw with them (unless it's a Rockstar game)

Gameplay > visuals

So sure HZD might look better but it's not really comparable when it comes to gameplay

 

[Wildebeest]

They should hire some new graduates to show them how to use Unity.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Everything done in Creation Engine can be done in UE4/5. They use it because they are familiar with it and dont want to pay to use another or build another from scratch.

What Unreal Engine game has a world as big as Skyrim, where everything you do is remembered, every object in the world it remembers where you place it (outside of dungeons that do 'refresh' after a time, but that's really just for gameplay reasons)...

And then there are all the AI routines happening, that are happening all over the world.. (not rendered of course, but they start getting rendered well outside of your view so it never feels "spawned."

Could someone build these systems on top of Unreal? I'm sure they could.. but then again, who has?

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Everything done in Creation Engine can be done in UE4/5. They use it because they are familiar with it and dont want to pay to use another or build another from scratch.

I've yet to see a large scale game on Unreal Engine. Even Arkham Knight is rather small compared to other open world games.

 

[Shubh_C63]

Well don't fix what isn't broken.


..wait

 

[rickybooby87]

I honestly don't think it's ready for early 2023, late 2023, maybe early 24. The Creation Engine is what is is, the benefit is that Bethesda is well versed in it. But, there are clearly some perf issues that have to be ironed out, including visual effects that seem to be running at sub 30fps, not to even mention it looked 30fps in a lot of the sequences in general, with room for LOD/pop-in improvement, low res particle effects, etc.

Seeing that it's a new franchise (Potentially) it needs to be solid, all the way around from a visual (Graphics/performance) standpoint, and a stability standpoint.

1000 worlds, and we've only seen a handful, and they weren't that super impressive in terms of design. That's the biggest hurdle imo, how do you spread yourself out across a thousand worlds, from a design standpoint, and give those worlds meaningful points of interest, exploration, quests, rewards, uniqueness, etc.?

 

[IntentionalPun]

I've yet to see a large scale game on Unreal Engine. Even Arkham Knight is rather small compared to other open world games.

Days Gone is pretty large as far as game world goes, and the horde mechanic is pretty cool and even has a touch of randomness to it with how hordes can spawn and be drawn away from their 'path' a touch.

I don't think UE games are limited by the actual scale of their maps. But no game really tries to do what Bethesda RPGs do with everything else. Honestly Days Gone is KINDA one of them where you actually have stuff like wildlife and raiders that can be getting into fights with each other... or zombies. You can happen upon a horde distracted by some "bad guys" or a bear or something and actually have dynamic gameplay.

I really don't think it's an issue with unreal engine itself.. it's just all the gameplay systems Bethesda built nobody has really tried to mimic all that much.

 

[RoboFu]

Bah you can use something like sqlite and do fast background queries when streaming in new areas.

BS excuses!!

 

[NinjaBoiX]

Yup, I 100% agree.

Their engine is tailor made to their approach to game design, a lot of the horsepower providing the shiny bells and whistles you get with other engines is otherwise engaged with persistence and continuity.

It’s the same reason most of the games exhibit so many bugs and glitches, the engine is usually juggling a whole lot of balls so it’s no surprise that some of them end up on the floor or wedged up in the rafters.

Having said all that, it seems most of the benefits of their engine are CPU bound rather than taxing the GPU, calling into question the lacklustre graphics. But I guess without rebuilding the engine from the ground up (which doesn’t seem unreasonable given the cash cow that was Skyrim), we’re stuck with fundamental underpinnings of a really rather ancient engine at this point.

TLDR - their engine is both unique and integral to their design approach, but I think they really need to splash the cash on building a new one from scratch with from all the gaffer tape and matchsticks they’re currently using to prop Creation up.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

They can't let go of the engine because as faulted as it is, it's still uniquely brilliant in other ways. The interaction you have with the many NPC's running around their worlds really set their games apart and give off a living, breathing feeling (basically everything the comparatively dead and lifeless Cyberpunk is not, as most of the NPC's blank from existence the moment you turn the other way). The same goes for loot around the world. These games truly remember everything and give you choices which really set them apart, but on the other hand the engine is also fundamentally flawed, and the games are often loaded with bugs and jank.

So what do they do? They keep building more layers on top of this fundamentally flawed foundation.

The games don't usually "show" very well and take an incredible amount of time to fine tune and polish, but if I'm being honest they are still some of the funnest and deepest rpg's out there.

I'm looking forward to the next generation of Creation Engine games, for better and worse. Gaming would truly not be the same with Bethesda and their quirky, flawed, yet incredibly fun and immersive games.

So this thread is totally predicated on no valid facts, only your vague limited knowledge of the Bethesda studio's development suite.

....Er.... Ok.

 

[mckmas8808]

Wrong. They 'can't let it go' cuz making a new engine is a hell. And making a new game and a new engine at the same time is a recipe for disaster.

Is it impossible for them to use the Unreal Engine going forward?

 

[FalsettoVibe]

People continue to care way too much about graphics.. I kinda just can't comprehend the attitude of some people. They see a games graphics and setting and think that's "the game" while ignoring everything else about it.

Really just have to get over it though if you are a Bethesda RPG fan.

People don't buy $500 dollar consoles to not care about the visuals. It's a part of the game and definitely help with immersion. I agree that there are other aspects of a game but if a person cares more about
graphics then its their preference.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Is it impossible for them to use the Unreal Engine going forward?

I was talking with someone. This person was saying that 'in-house' engines were going to disappear. We certainly have seen a recent increase of big studios using Unreal 5. But I think there is a lot of benefits of creating in-house 'bespoke' technology. (Specially for these AAA First party studios that want to squeeze all the performance posible and raise the visual benchmark of videogames).

So..I don't think is impossible. But I am going to say this:

IF starfield comes out broken....Bethesda has two options:

1. Create a brand new engine
2. Use as heavy modified Unreal Engine.

Now with daddy's MS money, they don't need to worry about going broke.

 

[Sakura]

They can't let go of the engine because as faulted as it is, it's still uniquely brilliant in other ways. The interaction you have with the many NPC's running around their worlds really set their games apart and give off a living, breathing feeling (basically everything the comparatively dead and lifeless Cyberpunk is not, as most of the NPC's blank from existence the moment you turn the other way). The same goes for loot around the world. These games truly remember everything and give you choices which really set them apart, but on the other hand the engine is also fundamentally flawed, and the games are often loaded with bugs and jank.

So what do they do? They keep building more layers on top of this fundamentally flawed foundation.

The games don't usually "show" very well and take an incredible amount of time to fine tune and polish, but if I'm being honest they are still some of the funnest and deepest rpg's out there.

I'm looking forward to the next generation of Creation Engine games, for better and worse. Gaming would truly not be the same with Bethesda and their quirky, flawed, yet incredibly fun and immersive games.

There is nothing the creation engine does that you can't do in a different engine.
It isn't some magical engine, which is capable of doing things no other engine is.
Even if another engine was missing features that they wanted, there is nothing stopping them from adding the features on their own. (Creation Engine, after all, is just an updated version of the Gamebryo engine that they did themselves).
Do you really think an engine from 25 years ago is the only engine capable of having object permanence or big open worlds?

Really, the reason they don't, is because switching engines is a huge time/money investment. It is an entirely new workflow, everyone will have to learn. They might even have to bring on a lot of new staff to work on it, costing more money.
Another big reason is, Bethesda doesn't want to have to pay royalties. If you use Unreal for example, you have to pay Epic something like 5% of the revenue. They might be able to work out a better deal, but that's still millions of dollars.
So they'd rather just stretch out what they have for as long as they can.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I need a link explaining exactly what it is that makes it so special on the developers side.
The YouTubes only have negative videos.

 

[killatopak]

What Unreal Engine game has a world as big as Skyrim, where everything you do is remembered, every object in the world it remembers where you place it (outside of dungeons that do 'refresh' after a time, but that's really just for gameplay reasons)...

And then there are all the AI routines happening, that are happening all over the world.. (not rendered of course, but they start getting rendered well outside of your view so it never feels "spawned."

Could someone build these systems on top of Unreal? I'm sure they could.. but then again, who has?

Witcher sequel I guess if it pans out.

UE5 has been used in a couple of MMOs as well so it's automatically better than what FO76 was trying to do.

 

[bender]

And let's not forget about bug persistence.

Switching engines wouldn't help with that.

 

[GymWolf]

Gameplay > visuals

So sure HZD might look better but it's not really comparable when it comes to gameplay

Interaction with npcs is only one part of the gameplay, movements and combat are way better in horizon than any bethesda title and that's gameplay aswell.

 

[BusierDonkey]

The Gamebryo engine and it's evolutions are what makes Bethesda's games so unique. It tracks variables and objects all over the world and allows objects even out of view to be interacted with by NPCs as long as they're in active cells near the player. That's the foundation of it and it might not be so easy to replicate.

I drop or place anything in a Bethesda game and that object will remain there until a word-wide cell reset occurs. On PC that interval can be changed to basically never happen.

In Fallout 3 there was no settlement system in place but using the game physics and ability to manipulate basically anything I completely customized my home in Megaton and Tenpenny Tower. I did the same in New Vegas and Skyrim. Once settlements were introduced and I get into modding I was able to cater the game entirely to my own preferences changing almost everything I didn't like and augmenting what I did. If Starfield is mod-friendly I'll do the same.

No other games allow you this level of creative freedom to mold a game to suit your preferences and creating a replacement for thee engine instead of improving it over the years might end up worse off in the end.

 

[mckmas8808]

I was talking with someone. This person was saying that 'in-house' engines were going to disappear. We certainly have seen a recent increase of big studios using Unreal 5. But I think there is a lot of benefits of creating in-house 'bespoke' technology. (Specially for these AAA First party studios that want to squeeze all the performance posible and raise the visual benchmark of videogames).

So..I don't think is impossible. But I am going to say this:

IF starfield comes out broken....Bethesda has two options:

1. Create a brand new engine
2. Use as heavy modified Unreal Engine.

Now with daddy's MS money, they don't need to worry about going broke.

Good points!

 

[Wildebeest]

I was talking with someone. This person was saying that 'in-house' engines were going to disappear. We certainly have seen a recent increase of big studios using Unreal 5. But I think there is a lot of benefits of creating in-house 'bespoke' technology. (Specially for these AAA First party studios that want to squeeze all the performance posible and raise the visual benchmark of videogames).

BGS is using a heavily modified version of the Gamebryo/Netimmerse engine, although the version they use was probably branched long before it was considered obsolete. It is only considered an in house engine because they call it that rather than drop it. If you want to see an old school dev that is still using their own in house engine and updating it, then a better example would be Digital Extremes and Warframe. Bethesda as a publisher also had access to the latest iD tech engine and all the expertise they could need, so it was mystifying why they wouldn't go in that direction.

 

[Decontamination Silo]

I'm firmly in the camp of "keep the engine". If they fucked around and made something hard to mod it would do unspeakable damage to the games.

Are there any truly modern engines with robust modding support? It seems like there are zero mods outside of some power hungry reshades for newer titles.

 

[killatopak]

I'm firmly in the camp of "keep the engine". If they fucked around and made something hard to mod it would do unspeakable damage to the games.

Are there any truly modern engines with robust modding support? It seems like there are zero mods outside of some power hungry reshades for newer titles.

Sims 4. Modding scene in that game is huge. So huge in fact that there are people that have their livelihood fully dependent on making mods for that game.

 

[Decontamination Silo]

Sims 4. Modding scene in that game is huge. So huge in fact that there are people that have their livelihood fully dependent on making mods for that game.

Does it use it's own custom engine? I don't know anything about the series on a technical level.

 

[assurdum]

My safe bet: it's more convenient to use such engine because it's cheaper. When will see that is no more worthy, all those magic features will disappear in the air for the next one in the market.