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Jason Schreier of Kotaku defends Bethesda for using the same engine

zeorhymer

Member
Kotaku Post

"Blaming Bethesda’s “game engine” is misguided, however, because the word “engine” itself is a misnomer. An engine isn’t a single program or piece of technology—it’s a collection of software and tools that are changing constantly. To say that Starfield and Fallout 76 are using the “same engine” because they might share an editor and other common traits is like saying Indian and Chinese meals are identical because they both feature chicken and rice. "

Ooof, he's really pulling the analogies very thin. He's trying to kiss Bethesda's ass ever since he leaked Fallout 76.
 

Horns

Member
Don't we have a Bethesda is using the same engine thread already? Don't think we need another thread especially one that will inevitably turn into kotaku iz bad, SJWs ruin lives, and gaming journalism blah blah blah.
 

Skyn3t

Banned
Maybe he should defend his readers as a so called game journalist. Disgusting guy, disgusting website. If I ever browse Kotaku again, may the Lord strike me with thunder from heaven. Amen.

Goddmb H Horns , it's like you read in my mind. Some serious MGS Psycho Mantis shit going on here :)
 
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Geki-D

Banned
He isn't actually wrong though. If I recall correctly God of War 3 is using the same engine as the first 2. Engines can be heavily upgraded to the point of looking totally different.
 
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Helios

Member
1474001318569.jpg
 

fantomena

Member
He is right, engines aren't a static thing either. They evolve and developers often use heavily modified engines of older engines.

Like I remember the spectacle when it was announced that Titanfall (and later Titanfall 2) were gonna use the Source engine. Of course people were outraged that Respawn would use such an old engine. Thing is, it was a heavily modified engine of the Source engine.

I don't think the majority of gamers knows much about game engines and how they work, neither do I.
 

Grinchy

Banned
He isn't actually wrong though. If I recall correctly God of War 3 is using the same engine as the first 2. Engines can be heavily upgraded to the point of looking totally different.
I wonder if Bethesda will ever figure out how to do that, then.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
i dont care if you call it an engine,smengine or mehzine.

at the end of the day the game looks dated and shit
 
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fantomena

Member
I wonder if Bethesda will ever figure out how to do that, then.

Modifying an engine is not only about look, but also about physics, how the game world will load, how collissions will happen, how animations will work, different systems for sound etc.

i dont care if you call it an engine,smengine or mehzine.

at the end of the day the game looks dated and shit

That's the problem. They could make a totally new engine from ground up, the game will look the same as before, but how the systems in the game works will be totally different. People only give a shit about textures in a game engine. If the textures are the same it must mean the devs are using the exact same engine as before.

A game engine is so much more than just textures.
 
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Grinchy

Banned
Modifying an engine is not only about look, but also about physics, how the game world will load, how collissions will happen, how animations will work, different systems for sound etc.
I wonder if Bethesda will ever figure out how to do that, then.
 

fantomena

Member
I wonder if Bethesda will ever figure out how to do that, then.

How do you know they haven't? Have you compared the Creation Engine for Fallout 4, Skyrim and Fallout 3?

Jason Schreier? Really nice name for a corporate PR not.

It would be nice if you didn't pop into Kotaku threads just for the sake of talking about everything that has nothing to do with the actual article. I get it. You don't like Shreier and Kotaku.
 
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Skyn3t

Banned
Yep, and it shows. CoD as multi billion dollar franchise, one of the biggest in the industry, should get a new engine long time ago.
 

fantomena

Member
He's played their games?

Yes, but that doesn't show me the actual game engine. It shows me something that was made from it.

Think about the huge amount of totally different games that has been made out of UE and CryEngine. They are all different cause the game engine works in more than just one way.
 

Grinchy

Banned
How do you know they haven't? Have you compared the Creation Engine for Fallout 4, Skyrim and Fallout 3?
I've played them all, yes. And I've finally reached a point where I'm not buying their mangled pink Chanel dress any longer. They need a new dress.
 
Yes, but that doesn't show me the actual game engine. It shows me something that was made from it.

Think about the huge amount of totally different games that has been made out of UE and CryEngine. They are all different cause the game engine works in more than just one way.
But Bethesda use the same engine for all of their games, no? And they are all bug ridden messes.
 

fantomena

Member
But Bethesda use the same engine for all of their games, no? And they are all bug ridden messes.

They use the same engine only in the name of Creation Engine. The name is the same, the engine and how things work in it are different.

I agreed, the Creation Engine is not a good engine, probably quite outdated too, but it still changes in many ways.

Beths community manager stated Fallout 4 could not release on PS3/360 because the stuff they did in the game could not work on the PS3/360. It is still the Creation Engine in both Skyrim and Fallout 4, but the engines have given those games different systems that made FO4 not work on PS3/360.

I don't know a lot about engines, but I have used UE4, CryENGINE, Unity and another engine I don't remember the name off just to have fun with them. They are deeply complicated imo.

Edit: Misremember, it was Beths community manager, not Pete Hines.
 
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They use the same engine only in the name of Creation Engine. The name is the same, the engine and how things work in it are different.

I agreed, the Creation Engine is not a good engine, probably quite outdated too, but it still changes in many ways.

Pete Hines stated Fallout 4 could not release on PS3/360 because the stuff they did in the game could not work on the PS3/360. It is still the Creation Engine in borh Skyrim and Fallout 4, but the engines have given those games different systems that made FO4 not work on PS3/360.
That's a fair point, I suppose. Perhaps it's just a matter of Bethesda not being particularly competent.
 
Technically he is correct about what is engine but he seems to completely have missed why people are unhappy.
No one would care if Bethesda was using great engine that was used to make multiple high quality non buggy games.

People are pissed because they see it as another game that will be bugged mess on launch and Bethesda is doing nothing about it.
 

fantomena

Member
That's a fair point, I suppose. Perhaps it's just a matter of Bethesda not being particularly competent.

Absolutely. The indutry has a ton of engines. Just look what Naughty Dog is doing with TLOU 2, look at Guerrilla Games Decima Engine (Horizon and Death Stranding) and look at Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. They are all different engines, but some are without a doubt better engines or the devs knows them better.

The Creations Engine changes all the time, but it doesn't mean it's a good and modern engine.

Like, Sony founded a new studio for Kojima in Japan, a studio with it's only purpose (as far as I know) to help Kojima with the Decima Engine.
 
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fantomena

Member
Who cares what the shill says? Could we please throw these kinds of stories into the loljournalism OT thread?

Not you? You do realize there are more than you who are a member of this forum that may be interested and that there are people who are not members who lurks here who may be interested in what Jason writes and disagree with you about "loljournalism" and him being a shill whatever you mean by that.
 
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bilderberg

Member
Fix the engine, change the engine...whatever you wanna call it, fans shouldn't have to give a shit about this. No one would give two shits about their engine if it worked. How can Jason be this naive? No one is asking for a second vaccine for polio.
 
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Iaterain

Member
I don't have problems with your "engine", Bethesda, it is your poor optimisation, outdated graphics and glitches I hate.
 
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Hinedorf

Banned
I guess I'm in the minority based on the comments I see. I think Jason does a consistently excellent job at providing information on games we might otherwise not have.

Sometimes a journalist does have to toe a certain line as does every profession. I totally disagree with Jason in what I think most people agree is something of a damage control piece being written but he's also entitled to his opinion as well. Regardless what Jason writes, Bethesda is going to seal their own fate.
 

fantomena

Member
Fix the engine, change the engine...whatever you wanna call it, fans shouldn't have to give a shit about this. No one would give two shits about their engine if it worked. How can Jason be this naive? No one is asking for a second vaccine for polio.

Their engine works, if it didn't work a game couldn't have been made out of it.

Jason is naive? He is simply stating that fans knows very little about game engines and how they work. It's up to the fans wherever they want to learn more about engines or not. He is presenting people information and people can decide what they want to do with this information.
 
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evanft

Member
It's amazing how quickly these game journo types will jump to defend a multinational corporation from consumers.
 

Teletraan1

Banned
If the engine is old/new who cares. They seem to be getting less and less out of whatever they are using for very little gain that is evident to the end user. FO4 ran like absolute shit on my old PC out of the box while Skyrim ran perfectly fine loaded with user created mods that made it look superior to FO4. They can't even keep pace with their mod community in performance or quality. Probobly why they clipped their wings with the newer games and the shittier mod support.
 

DavidGzz

Member
Their engine sucks. I hope ES6 has a new one. I remember playing Daggerfall as a teen and being blow away. Give us some innovation with all that cash Bethesda.
 

bilderberg

Member
Their engine works, if it didn't work a game couldn't have been made out of it.

Jason is naive? He is simply stating that fans knows very little about game engines and how they work. It's up to the fans wherever they want to learn more about engines or not. He is presenting people information and people can decide what they want to do with this information.

this thread is basically "semantics the thread." No shit their engine works if that's our definition of working. Halo's engine has lines of code from Marathon in it. We're gonna call that the same engine?
 

Joyful

Member
Yes, let's delay their games to 2030. Brilliant.
just sayin skyrim came out in 2011
even if they started the sequel on a completely new engine theyve had plenty of time
now if they used something modern that already exists like unreal 4 that would be sped up even more
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
just sayin skyrim came out in 2011
even if they started the sequel on a completely new engine theyve had plenty of time
now if they used something modern that already exists like unreal 4 that would be sped up even more
Well:
1. You're assuming that absolutely nothing has changed in that engine since Skyrim, Fallout 4, and now Fallout 76. There is a massive amount of evidence says that you're wrong. It's not the same engine that created Skyrim to what created 76.
2. Unreal 4 is a fine engine and you nor I have absolutely no clue if Unreal can even handle trying to fill a house with cheese and it will persist in a massive open world.
 

anthraticus

Banned
Fix the engine, change the engine...whatever you wanna call it, fans shouldn't have to give a shit about this. No one would give two shits about their engine if it worked. How can Jason be this naive? No one is asking for a second vaccine for polio.
Haha, exactly. It's only a talking point at all because it sucks.

Haven't played any of their games since Fallout 3, but is it still not able to do ladders ? :messenger_beaming:
 

EDMIX

Member
Maybe he is right. People might be making this a bigger issue than it really is.

Agreed. How I feel is, if the team believes they can pull it off, who am I to say otherwise? I mean...how many of us have ever released a game that moved 20 million units? So I can't say what a developer can't do if I myself am not a developer. I know not of what they are even seeking to really suggest if they need a new engine. Even the term "engine" is very broad, they can just update parts they want to, but if they want the same tools....who are we to really say no to a IP and company we don't own?

What ever works for them is fine by me.

If the game looks good, is fun, its a day 1 from me. I don't buy or play game based on engine. That would be like me saying I won't buy Titanfall cause it runs on Source....
 

EDMIX

Member
He isn't actually wrong though. If I recall correctly God of War 3 is using the same engine as the first 2. Engines can be heavily upgraded to the point of looking totally different.

Agreed. Thats the issue, is MOST don't even KNOW that. They keep saying "engine" as in graphically how they see a game, thus believe that is what that boils down to.
 

EDMIX

Member
Call it whatever you want. We know it's gong to be a buggy mess, jank fest with dated animations.

How do we know they are going to use the same animations? Witcher 3 used a new engine and was filled with bugs, missing faces, horses that couldn't cross the bridge, people flying, corrupted saves, missing voices in terms of sound randomly etc. So I don't know if new engine means less bugs or zero etc
 

MayauMiao

Member
I don't care much about the game engine as long as the engine runs fine and is able to keep up with the graphics, presentation, gameplay, sound, etc.
 

Grinchy

Banned
I don't care much about the game engine as long as the engine runs fine and is able to keep up with the graphics, presentation, gameplay, sound, etc.
Is there some alternate universe where these games don't have terrible performance, graphics and sound design?
 

BigBooper

Member
Saying this is him defending them using the same engine is also saying he is criticising their game direction, design, and programming. If the engine doesn't matter, that's the only conclusion to draw.
 
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