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[winjer]

Despite all the issues that UE5 has, is still much better than the Creation Engine.

 

[Shubh_C63]

Fallout 4. Then Starfield.
I don't think they will getaway a third time.

 

[SimTourist]

? Just showing some nice id tech 7 visuals that could work in a Bethesda game.

Imagine that it’s The Elder Scrolls, you traverse a nicely vegetated world, explore and find a dungeon, some scary stuff, climbing a mountain and end up in some cabin with some old man giving you advice how to unravel some ancient mystery, etc

Spoiler: Beware, more Indy, but no UI to distract…

If you can’t see it then you don’t want to see it.

And no problem with open areas and movement freedom here, and day, night, indoor, rain, physics, all there, and every leaf is moving as it should in the wind, detailed world, nature everywhere, with all the fancy graphical effects and path tracing RT. As far as I can see id has put it all in there.

I don’t see what UE5 would bring to the table. Except shader stutter or some other annoying thing. Plus licensing fees. And engine problems out of their hands.

You can really feel the engine struggling in the more open areas with poor draw distance and distant detail. It's good for corridor games but not big open world games.

 

[Mayar]

Despite all the issues that UE5 has, is still much better than the Creation Engine.

Pay for the license, pay royalties from the sale of games to Epic, while sitting on a ready-made engine from ID tech. This does not make any sense from an economic point of view, they have direct free access to the ID engine. As I already wrote, this is the same as if EA, having Frost Byte, sat and thought - "well, screw it, let's do everything on Unreal". No, of course, it's up to them to decide, but it will be an extremely strange step from them, when they can take a ready-made engine for free, modify it for themselves in the necessary aspects, and use it in their games.

 

[Soodanim]

If Creation Engine is dropped and all of the expected features aren't ported over, I expect future games to have far shorter life spans than what Bethesda games are known for. I would even go so far as to say a theoretical UE5 TES6 could easily have a less active community than Skyrim 6 months after release.

Bethesda games are janky but well designed worlds and stories that serve as canvases for fans to craft as they see fit. Bethesda were even embracing that by integrating a mod browser. To lose that means they lose what makes them unique and they become just another AAA release that is forgotten about as soon as people are done the first time round.

But that isn't to say Bethesda shouldn't be making significant improvements with every iteration of the engine. If they kept up no one would suggest dropping it. Invest some time and talent into bringing it up to speed.

 

[Laptop1991]

If Creation Engine is dropped and all of the expected features aren't ported over, I expect future games to have far shorter life spans than what Bethesda games are known for. I would even go so far as to say a theoretical UE5 TES6 could easily have a less active community than Skyrim 6 months after release.

Bethesda games are janky but well designed worlds and stories that serve as canvases for fans to craft as they see fit. Bethesda were even embracing that by integrating a mod browser. To lose that means they lose what makes them unique and they become just another AAA release that is forgotten about as soon as people are done the first time round.

But that isn't to say Bethesda shouldn't be making significant improvements with every iteration of the engine. If they kept up no one would suggest dropping it. Invest some time and talent into bringing it up to speed.

And that's already happening now according to Steam charts. and most players will be using mods on Steam, so changing the engine to UE5 or other ones without being able to do everything the Creation Engine does is a big risk for Bethesda, it would be better if they built a whole new one themselves but i can't see them doing that.

Skyrim - 19000 + current player's
Fallout 4 - 10000 +
Starfield - 3000 +

 

[GymWolf]

About time.

 

[Fess]

You can really feel the engine struggling in the more open areas with poor draw distance and distant detail. It's good for corridor games but not big open world games.

UE5 struggles everywhere…

I get that UE5 is great at certain things but the only game that has felt stable and impressive so far is Hellblade 2, which is super linear and slow and has little vegetation and no physics iirc and no path tracing.

Stalker 2 is probably the first game that could show how a Bethesda game would be in UE5. It’s big and fully open and has time of day changes and looks amazing at times, especially weather effects are top notch. But the engine certainly struggles there.

I guess we’ll have a better understanding how the engine would fit Bethesda after Avowed is out, it’s Obsidian’s Skyrim.

 

[deriks]

Remember when different engines showed different ways of game art?

It's quickly disappearing

 

[Johnny Concrete]

Why not make a branch out of an IdTech Engine to power their games?

Machinegames did the same.

And hopefully engineer it in a way so that you can increment it somewhat easily when IdSoftware adds new rendering techniques to it.

 

[freemandos]

A change of engine wouldn't be a bad idea, but...it has to be modding friendly.

 

[Z O N E]

If Creation Engine is dropped and all of the expected features aren't ported over, I expect future games to have far shorter life spans than what Bethesda games are known for. I would even go so far as to say a theoretical UE5 TES6 could easily have a less active community than Skyrim 6 months after release.

Bethesda games are janky but well designed worlds and stories that serve as canvases for fans to craft as they see fit. Bethesda were even embracing that by integrating a mod browser. To lose that means they lose what makes them unique and they become just another AAA release that is forgotten about as soon as people are done the first time round.

But that isn't to say Bethesda shouldn't be making significant improvements with every iteration of the engine. If they kept up no one would suggest dropping it. Invest some time and talent into bringing it up to speed.

Pretty much this.

I don't think people understand that modding is also a gateway into Game Development. It allows for people to mess around and see how stuff works and see if they can replicate it or build better stuff and build up their portfolio.

Or maybe just to do it for the community.

Sure, the engine may not be the best looking, but as far as modding goes, it's amazing.

 

[Gonzito]

De Guatemala a Guatepeor

 

[Alexios]

If Creation Engine is dropped and all of the expected features aren't ported over, I expect future games to have far shorter life spans than what Bethesda games are known for. I would even go so far as to say a theoretical UE5 TES6 could easily have a less active community than Skyrim 6 months after release.

Bethesda games are janky but well designed worlds and stories that serve as canvases for fans to craft as they see fit. Bethesda were even embracing that by integrating a mod browser. To lose that means they lose what makes them unique and they become just another AAA release that is forgotten about as soon as people are done the first time round.

But that isn't to say Bethesda shouldn't be making significant improvements with every iteration of the engine. If they kept up no one would suggest dropping it. Invest some time and talent into bringing it up to speed.

Erm, UE has a long history of high modability, on par with the biggest examples in gaming like the Half-Life and Quake series, which (alongside later fully free versions of the engine and how much it's used/required in the whole industry) also means tons of folks are familiar with its basics., the level editor, scripting language, plugins for all the asset creation programs actively used and so on. Of course that tended to be its flagship games, Unreal & Unreal Tournament, not every random UE game cared (or perhaps licenced the capability) to provide an SDK, obviously a TES or Fallout would

It's the same tools used by the developers so the tools are already there, of course they'd customize them (hence tools from one game wouldn't just work in another, the developer had to first implement it, UT's tools didn't work in Splinter Cell to make the claim that because SC had few mods it's the engine's fault when UT2004 had gazillions of mods showing the capability is there and it was Ubisoft who just wanted a game out and over with and not a modding platform, just like the few non Bethesda Gamebryo engine games aren't modable either). And yes there was a large amount of mods (most of which nobody cares for, we all just get the best) in all the flagship games as there are for Bethesda's, whether they were just new maps, models, weapons, minor and major gameplay modifiers, or more substantial conversions and total conversions, Idk what you miss.

Current post-UT examples of its modability are all the vastly different games using UE, AAA or indie like this guy's, as they all use the same tools and basic examples included to create vastly different experiences, from racing and FPS to Souls-likes and other RPGs.

My first comment here isn't against creation engine, nor is this comment, but let's not be so delusional, narrow minded and essentially ignorant of gaming history outside the Bethesda gaming circle to promote it, come on. Doom, Quake, Unreal and Half-Life are synonymous with game modding!

 

[Nigel]

Replacing shit with other shit ain’t gonna help anyone.

 

[StereoVsn]

Erm, UE has a history of high modability, on par with the big examples like Half-Life and Quake series, which also means tons of folks are familiar with its basics. That tended to be its flagship games, namely Unreal, not every random UE game came with an SDK, but obviously a TES or Fallout would.

You can’t really compare the two. Look at number of available mods for say Skyrim or 3D Fallout games to any Unreal game. It’s much more difficult for your average person to mod UE vs Creation Engine.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Pretty much this.

I don't think people understand that modding is also a gateway into Game Development. It allows for people to mess around and see how stuff works and see if they can replicate it or build better stuff and build up their portfolio.

Or maybe just to do it for the community.

Sure, the engine may not be the best looking, but as far as modding goes, it's amazing.

I think for the reasons that Creation Engine (CK) is giving them trouble UE5 would give them even more trouble. They have very very high scope / lofty goals and expectations customers have on them are not great for a not incredibly tech heavy team that got their engineer to where they wanted it with 20 years almost of refinement.
How many UE wizard engineers would they hire? How much time would they invest to customise it and adapt it to their needs well?

 

[Soodanim]

Erm, UE has a history of high modability, on par with the biggest examples like Half-Life and Quake series, which also means tons of people are familiar with its basics. Of course that tended to be the flagship games, namely UT, not every random UE game, but obviously a TES or Fallout would focus on this aspect.

There's modding and then there's Bethesda game modding. If there aren't full modding tools with wide open gates it might as well not exist.

Are there many examples of UE5 being modded? I suspect Beth would need to do quite a bit of customisation to get whatever they need the engine to do. Let's not forget object permanence too, it's not just mods.

 

[Laptop1991]

Best game i've played this year and since Cyberpunk 4 years ago is Fallout London!, a mod, which wouldn't have been made or possible without the Creation Kit using the Creation Engine, no other engine comes close to modding, it's just Bethesda that prefer's and cares more about the Fallout 76 cash cow's of the industry now instead of the the SP titles, that's the problem.

 

[poodaddy]

Despite all the issues that UE5 has, is still much better than the Creation Engine.

I adamantly disagree. Not everything needs to be UE5, and the types of games Bethesda makes would not be served by moving to UE. I do agree that Creation Engine is getting too old and it's time to make a new engine, but it needs to be a new Creation Engine in principal, not UE.

 

[simpatico]

Why is GAF primarily focused on graphics in a Bethesda game? Changing engines would be like closing the studio. Creation Engine IS Bethesda. They depend on the community to do half the work. I wouldn't even be excited for a modern Bethesda RPG that didn't offer extensive modding. Then you've just got Avowed with a bigger budget. Not interested. Bethesda games are like an unspoken type of Roblox or Garys Mod. The game in the tin is just a tiny part of the overall product value.

 

[winjer]

I adamantly disagree. Not everything needs to be UE5, and the types of games Bethesda makes would not be served by moving to UE. I do agree that Creation Engine is getting too old and it's time to make a new engine, but it needs to be a new Creation Engine in principal, not UE.

True, not everything needs to be UE5.
But the Creatin Engine is such a pile of excrement that it should be replaced. By anything.

 

[niilokin]

Perhaps the rumored Oblivion remaster is a test run for UE?

 

[poodaddy]

True, not everything needs to be UE5.
But the Creatin Engine is such a pile of excrement that it should be replaced. By anything.

You're essentially asking for Bethesda games to not feel like Bethesda games anymore, function like Bethesda games anymore, or play like Bethesda games. I get it bro, and trust me, I agree on Creation Engine being throughly out of date and in need of a major overhaul and complete reworking from the ground up, and frankly I think they should just make a whole new Creation Engine altogether, and that would effectively give you what you want, which is a new engine to replace CE. I'm with that, but UE is not the right choice for it. I don't believe UE will ever be the right engine for projects of Bethesda's scale, though I'd love to be proven wrong on that front. Maybe we'll get a Fallout 3 or Oblivion remake in UE at some point and I can eat my hat....but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Zimmy68]

It just blows my mind how long it takes them to create games and when they do, they still use the horribly dated creation engine.
You would think that would be a real time saver but nope, all the wait and all the jank of the crappy engine.