Bethesda Softworks has had great success with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises with their large open worlds and countless objectives and stories to complete. However, because of all of that content it’s well known that the game “engine” that they use can be a little buggy and dated. In a recent interview with Gamestar that is translated and cited in a Forbes article, the Game Director for Bethesda, Todd Howard, has confirmed several rumors about the engine for the developer’s upcoming titles.
Not much is known about the space drama Starfield that Bethesda has teased for some time, but Todd Howard has confirmed that the game will borrow from the same engine that Fallout 4 and Skyrim used in 2015 and 2011 respectively. Additionally, he has implied that the same engine will also be used in the much anticipated Elder Scrolls VI, which has been speculated to take place in either the Redguard home of Hammerfell or the Breton’s homeland of High Rock. The fact that this “engine” will be used is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does have some fans concerned on Reddit with the new Fallout 76 borrowing heavily from Fallout 4 assets.
Howard has explained that “Fallout 76 uses a new renderer, a new lighting system and a new system for the landscape generation. For Starfield even more of it changes. And for The Elder Scrolls 6, out there on the horizon even more.” This does mean that the upcoming games will utilize the same Creation Engine. The state of Fallout 76 at launch has been met with a number of bugs that its player versus player community is already concerned about. To see a full discussion on the early bugs of the game check out our previous discussion.
Howard continues, “We like our editor. It allows us to create worlds really fast and the modders know it really well. There are some elementary ways we create our games and that will continue because that lets us be efficient and we think it works best.”
Again, just because the same engine is being used does not mean that drastic leaps cannot be made that will be revolutionary for the supposed next-gen games. It is a system that Bethesda has used consistently and their following and popularity has continued to rise as the years go on.