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[The_Mike]

None. The engine Bethesda uses for their RPGs is unmatched.

If you want a different kind of game, play a different kind of game.

I know right, how would we have great moments like these in another engine

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Nothing can beat creation engine.
The ability to put anything in your pocket is something special.

 

[EDMIX]

Avalanche used their own engine.

Ok that was it, I remembered it was something like that.

I thought there were very real issues with using the Creation in Fallout 76 because of the multiplayer aspect. I was under the impression that the Creation engine was not made for this in mind and every had to adapt it causing large issues.

Agreed. I feel a lot of that is part of it, the idea of a MMO type game for fallout I think doesn't really suite the series. I feel even in a different engine that worked with it, you likely would have still saw the reception the way it was with Fallout 76, stuff like not having NPCs that are human at release and lacking much of that Fallout feel and experience is the meat of what people hated with 76.

It would be like trying to say putting Mass Effect Andromeda in a new engine would magically make people ok with no Shepard, bad story etc. I remember the tech being an issue with those games, but the design and concept of those games being the main talking point. Its not like majority on this forum was JUST talking about the tech with Fallout 76 or Mass Effect Andromeda as to suggest in a different engine it would be 10/10 by most of us. I just don't recall the majority of the conversation about those games being flops really being solely due to the engine.

That was more so a bullet point of many bullet points lol

 

[martino]

I know right, how would we have great moments like these in another engine

your examples are not the real problems with bethesda games bugs and are not that frequent and problematic overall
they happens in all games too
here great moment for you in :

• decima
• unreal engine 4
• re engine
• frostbite

 

[whyman]

I could see the Snowdrop engine working very well for them. Strange you did not put that as an option.

 

[Bilbo Baggins]

None of the options listed in the poll would work better for an open world game like Bethesda make.

This is a tepid reheat of the same debate that's been done to death over & over again through the years.

No, Bethesda don't have a "crappy engine". Stop saying that, as if you have any clue what you're talking about.

 

[Mistershine.]

On the subject of game engines, why is it that open world survival games using UE have problems with water reflections? Ark, Conan Exiles, Grounded, etc all have the same issues but non survival games seem to be fine.

 

[Soodanim]

The very concept of a new engine in Bethesda’s games concerns me, because despite how blindingly obvious that mods are the life and soul of TES and FO, you can never really trust them to respect that.

So anything they do or theoretically could do needs to have strong modifications to support extensive access via modding tools

 

[kraspkibble]

any engine would be better than that shit show they use.

they won't change it though...why would they? it "works" and their games sell well.

i guess if i had to pick an engine then i'd go Decima.

 

[Miles708]

As someone who's worked with ue4 professionally and makes custom game engines in their spare time, I'm of the opinion that ue4 is impossible to use to make a Bethesda RPG.

Game engines are tricky things. they need insane amounts of engineering put into them in order to make them performant and usable, and in many cases, game engines need to be catered towards the type of game it will be used to make.

This allows the game engine will be engineered to be optimized for those types of games.
This also means a generic game engine (such as unreal) most likely won't be optimal for many types of games.

Bethesda's version of the creation engine is probably geared towards being performant with large seamless maps, and I doubt there are many other engines that are made for these types of games (maybe the one they use at Avalanche studios).

Unreal is very good for smaller levels that have pre-baked everything to look really pretty.

It's not very good for large worlds like Bethesda games. The best option for Bethesda would be to improve upon the engine and not discard decades of knowledge to essentially learn a new engine.

This is exactly the kind of post i was hoping to find. Measured and insightful. Thanks.

 

[BrentonB]

RED Engine. First-person POV capable, can pick up lots of garbage, able to stream a big open world (provided an SSD is in use), supports lots of advanced graphical features, can be modded.

 

[Hendrick's]

Level Designer in Arkane.

Creating an interactive open world RPG with dynamic day and night cycle where every object is not part of a scenery and hence very easy to mod, unlike every other engine mentioned in OP. Ofcourse Skyrim had issues in the 360 generation(they used the same engine in Fallout 4) but they have completely overhauled it for Starfield/TES VI. Forcing engines on games not meant for them will lead to a Frostbite situation(OP sounds like the EA management in that regard). Bethesda owns id Tech(which OP failed to mention) and they won't use that either.

Bethesda Explains Why id Tech 5 Wouldn't Work for Fallout 4

In an interview with AusGamers from QuakeCon, Bethesda's Pete Hines explained why Fallout 4 wouldn't work on id Tech tech. From the interviewNone of these detractors damaged the ambitious scope of what Bethesda Game Studios has set out to achieve, but next to the beauty of recent open-world...

n4g.com

They need to get rid of the feature. Moving loaves of bread and forks around a room adds nothing to the game.

 

[hemo memo]

Any modern engine is better than their dinosaur engine.

 

[martino]

They need to get rid of the feature. Moving loaves of bread and forks around a room adds nothing to the game.

it's not because a creation ambition doesn't target you that it needs to be gone.
wouldn't it better to have a better balance with more big studio relying less in building games in mostly static worlds ?

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Creation is a unique engine that does exactly what Bethesda needs it to do. Just reiterate upon it and it'll be fine.

 

[RyRy93]

RED engine, CP2077 is the closest thing we've seen to a Beth RPG in years but obviously it's way more impressive technically.

 

[Garibaldi]

Northlight from Remedy is about the only other engine that has loads of physics based objects. But how that would translate to a persistent big world approach I'm not sure. Gamebyro is very specific to Beth games and tbh for all it's jank, it does it pretty well if you have the resources to run it.

 

[Ar¢tos]

Unity or Java.... Hell, maybe even something made in Visual Basic or Pascal would be an improvement...

 

[SCB3]

As someone who's worked with ue4 professionally and makes custom game engines in their spare time, I'm of the opinion that ue4 is impossible to use to make a Bethesda RPG.

Game engines are tricky things. they need insane amounts of engineering put into them in order to make them performant and usable, and in many cases, game engines need to be catered towards the type of game it will be used to make.

This allows the game engine will be engineered to be optimized for those types of games.
This also means a generic game engine (such as unreal) most likely won't be optimal for many types of games.

Bethesda's version of the creation engine is probably geared towards being performant with large seamless maps, and I doubt there are many other engines that are made for these types of games (maybe the one they use at Avalanche studios).

Unreal is very good for smaller levels that have pre-baked everything to look really pretty.

It's not very good for large worlds like Bethesda games. The best option for Bethesda would be to improve upon the engine and not discard decades of knowledge to essentially learn a new engine.

Bingo, as good as Unreal can look and be to work with, its not really well made for a Fallout or massive Open world game, Gamebyro was designed with that in mind

In fact, if Bethedsa just made the fixes the community makes and include them at launch, we'd get less buggy games from them, I hope them being part of Microsoft now allows them the budget to do this. In fact, Fallout 4 and Skyrim released fairly well with only smaller bugs to be fixed at first, it was Fallout 76 that really was bad for most people (which has been since fixed)

 

[kuncol02]

None. Most important part of Bethesda games is their modability and no other engine allows it for that degree.

 

[RJMacready73]

What I don't understand about Bethesda is they put out awful looking games, I mean id fire their entire art department or at least the leads cause their games look shit when put against the competition but we all know the engine, in the capable of hands of complete amateur modders, can produce stunning results so why in the holy fuck do they keep putting out graphically sub standard games when the engine is capable of some stunning visuals? why does is it take the modding scene to transform and overhaul their games, why with all their resources can they not do it??

 

[johntown]

You cannot have any engine running any game. Bethesda is too deep into this engine to switch now. The only realistic option would be the Red Engine but given how Cyberpunk turned out I'm not sure it would be much better.

Their games take long enough to come out that adding a new engine would double that time. They just need to improve animations and spend more $$ on character facial technologies to look more modern. That with improved QA could make difference but with the type of games they make it can only do so much.

 

[Revolutionary]

Thank god there are some level heads in here that have already explained why they keep using their own engine and the advantages it brings. Is it buggy? Yes. Is it incredibly ambitious? YES. Those two go hand in hand.

I wish most engines had the capabilities that Gamebryo/CE had. When I was playing RDR2 and witnessed a corpse literally disappear 30ft away from me, I couldn't help but think that "if this was Gamebryo/CE that body would have been there for hours if not days of in-game time".

 

[martino]

Thank god there are some level heads in here that have already explained why they keep using their own engine and the advantages it brings. Is it buggy? Yes. Is it incredibly ambitious? YES. Those two go hand in hand.

 

[Elektro Demon]

Unreal engine is the bomb. Versatile, well optimized and can look like photorealism.

 

[Croatoan]

Need an engine that can handle all the actors bethesda has in the world (characters, loots, props, ect). UE4/5 can do it but they would likely have to modify it some. No idea if those other engines are designed in a way that allows so many physics objects in a map. I believe the world composition system in UE4 functions in a similar way to Gamebyro Chuck/Cells system a well.

 

[nani17]

who this fuck voted for frostbite

 

[TheContact]

the frostbite engine would be great. destructible terrain in a fallout game? yes pls

 

[Hendrick's]

it's not because a creation ambition doesn't target you that it needs to be gone.
wouldn't it better to have a better balance with more big studio relying less in building games in mostly static worlds ?

The cost does not outweigh the benefit. I know people love making pillow forts, but I think most people would prefer a better looking, less buggy, and better performant game over nick knacks you can sort of move around with an awful mechanic.

 

[nowhat]

My vote is for Thomas the Tank Engine.

 

[HaveButOneLife]

No other engine will work, they're used to their current Creation engine and it makes for easy ability for the fans to mod (and in turn fix their game, of course).

Unreal Engine 4 looks the best but is poorly optimized on consoles, they're better off just coding their own.

 

[IntentionalPun]

I have thousands of hours in Bethesda RPGs and it's rare I see even a minor bug. These games are complex and get cleaned up fairly quickly. FO76 is a massive incredibly solid game now.

Yes, they've been trash on older consoles...

But they are amazing on PC; and if the "object persistence," mission structure, etc. isn't your thing.. go play other games. Many millions enjoy the Bethesda games they way they are.

 

[mansoor1980]

the engine that farcry 5 used might be decent .

 

[Soodanim]

They need to get rid of the feature. Moving loaves of bread and forks around a room adds nothing to the game.

Tell that to the people who put buckets on heads in Skyrim, they’ll hunt you down

 

[lostinblue]

Yeah used the Apex engine, probably that's what they are used to using. Or ID Tech is not suited to open worlds perhaps?

id Tech 5/6 sure wasn't (mostly because of Megatexture would saturate the bandwitdth available for streaming other things, but also map size limitations). id Tech 7 is quite a bit more suitable as they got rid of megatexture improved map size and improved streaming a lot.

It's certainly not the best engine in the market for it mind you, but software necessities can drive engine development to find solutions, so idtech would improve on that front if it had to.

Speaking of software necessities enforcing changes on an engine, I have no doubt bruteforcing Fallout 76 through their current engine, as crazy and narrowminded as it was judging from the state the engine was - certainly made the engine internally very different and more up to date than the previous FO4 revision (specially in the years of fixes post release). That doesn't mean all it's quirks and convolutions are gone though specially seeing what happened was a form of survival mode, not something like a proper engine development process with a proper roadmap.

There's no excuse for the graphics pipeline not to be up to par if revamped enough (IW call of duty engine roots are Quake 3/idtech 3 for instance), just like they would surely be able to pull their "tons of movable objects" elsewhere with more total resources available/better multicore support than their own offering. Saying otherwise is acting like their engine is very efficient which it isn't, the thing it is is specialized, and there's difference.

Still familiarity lowers dev costs at least initially/theoretically, as it's easier to prototype and get the ball rolling; this is the reason Valve did HL:Alyx on the aging Source Engine just last year, and there's plenty other examples.

Main reason they don't want to move from their engine is down to their ancient non-efficient Papyrus scripting language.


And yeah, as some pointed out Red Engine has similar behaviour is a lot of things yes. Graphics pipeline is way more polished but the way some things behave makes it very obvious that the reliance on scripts is similar. And I pity the devs who have to use it for it, gives you more "liberty" to implement whatever you want without requiring specific engine development to pull, yes, but also makes everything manual/case-by-case scenarios. Things become very complex (and inefficient) that way.