Although Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 are still far away, the subject of engine upgrades is often brought up in conversation when discussing both of Bethesda’s highly anticipated titles.
The studio’s games boast high levels of freedom and modding potential but, especially after Fallout 76 and its rocky launch, many feel like an engine overhaul is required for Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, including Bethesda.
“The overhaul on our engine is probably the largest we’ve ever had, maybe even larger than Morrowind to Oblivion,” Todd Howard said, speaking to Gamesindustry.biz during the Develop:Brighton online conference.
Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 Engine Overhaul
Although the developer improves its engine for each title, according to Howard, “more people [are] doing engine work now by a factor of five” than ever before for the two highly anticipated RPGs.
“There are things we do that we still like, the way we build our worlds, the way people can mod it – these are things I think are fundamentally good about our tech stack. But from rendering to animation to pathing to procedural generation… I don’t want to say everything, but it’s a significant overhaul.” Howard continued.
“It’s taken us longer than we would have liked, but it’s going to power everything we’re doing with Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6. When people see the results, they’ll hopefully be as happy as we are with what’s on the screen and also how we can go about making our games.”
Out of the two RPGs, Starfield will arrive first, being Bethesda’s first new IP in 25 years. No release dates were shared, which likely means that we’ve got a good bit of waiting to do.
While not much else was revealed about Elder Scrolls 6, composer Jeremy Soule may not be returning for the next entry in the series, according to a post from last year.
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