By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - Bethesda Is Doubling Down On Creation Engine. What Gives?

shikamaru317 said:

The main Bethesda studio in Bethesda Maryland has only released 1 game since Skyrim, Fallout 4. It got a 90 meta, far from bad. Fallout 76 wasn't developed by the main Bethesda studio, it was developed by the new Austin Texas studio they opened, and it was apparently rushed out with only 1 year of development, seemingly because Starfield got delayed out of 2018 at the last moment because Bethesda decided they wanted to release it on next-gen with the new revamped Creation Engine build, instead of on current gen with the old Creation engine build, and Zenimax wanted a game to fill Starfield's place in the 2018 release schedule.

88 average to be precise but tbh I think Bethesda got something of a pass with the problems F4 had the issue here is the more developers enter their space the more the problems their games have will be more and more scrutinized, the game barely ran on X1 until patches but was given an 88 average, a few problems is one thing but actual issues where we had reports of drops to 0fps should no longer be allowed to slide especially as technically the game wasn't on par with many others on the platforms it was on it was the engine fighting the hardware and architecture. F76 still uses the engine and it laid bare the issues that are present in Bethesda's games and more and more people are noticing now as developers put out similar games with out these issues.

Saying it's revamped means little if it's still the same framework that's hindering them.



Around the Network
konnichiwa said:
Dulfite said:

I don't really have a vested interest in this argument, but I have to ask you something. Is it ok for a gaming studio to keep using the same engine over and over again with crazy amounts of bugs when other companies are moving on with far better engines? Just curious what your thoughts are here.

Well those companies are also the ones that don't come close to making a game that sells like Skyrim. That's basically the issue, one group says Skyrim was so unplayable while others would name it one of the best games of all times. 

I believe the games that were compared to, engine and bug wise earlier in the thread, were Red Dead Redemption 2 and Zero Dawn: Horizon, if I understood people's letter's correctly.

RDR2, according to VGC, is just under 20 million copies sold.

H:ZD is just under 6 million copies sold.

Skyrim is at 26 million copies sold, which is fantastic, but not much better than RDR2 has done so far, and Skyrim has been out for a long time now and this is counting remastered versions as well as VR and Switch release. The original Skyrim games, which is probably a lot more fair to compare to, were at 16.52 million if we are including Switch, and just 15.37 million if we are just counting 360/ps3. I suspect RDR2 will be closer to 30 million when its all said and done, and H:ZD to be at least 7-8 million, so Skyrim is basically right between them but certainly not blowing either of them out.



Dulfite said:
konnichiwa said:

Well those companies are also the ones that don't come close to making a game that sells like Skyrim. That's basically the issue, one group says Skyrim was so unplayable while others would name it one of the best games of all times. 

I believe the games that were compared to, engine and bug wise earlier in the thread, were Red Dead Redemption 2 and Zero Dawn: Horizon, if I understood people's letter's correctly.

RDR2, according to VGC, is just under 20 million copies sold.

H:ZD is just under 6 million copies sold.

Skyrim is at 26 million copies sold, which is fantastic, but not much better than RDR2 has done so far, and Skyrim has been out for a long time now and this is counting remastered versions as well as VR and Switch release. The original Skyrim games, which is probably a lot more fair to compare to, were at 16.52 million if we are including Switch, and just 15.37 million if we are just counting 360/ps3. I suspect RDR2 will be closer to 30 million when its all said and done, and H:ZD to be at least 7-8 million, so Skyrim is basically right between them but certainly not blowing either of them out.

RDR2 is not really a great example of a great RPG. Also is it not a great example for being glitch free,  early weeks their were reports with people being stuck in the story because of a glitch and if you click funny glitches on youtube in RDR2 you find plenty. Skyrim passed 30 million in November 2016 before switch release/a month after PS4/xone release and before the PSVR release making it one one of the top 10 selling games ever or close to.

' The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the studio’s previous game, may have been an even bigger hit, selling 30 million copies in the five year since its release. The average Skyrim player, according to Bethesda, has spent 150 hours inside the game’s vast open world.'

Yes Skyrim is known for having bugs but it is also known for being one of best game experiences for a lot of people. In fact most hate towards Skyrim doesn't come from bethesda haters but from Fallout fans.  






How sure are we the creation engine is at fault as opposed to them just requiring far more QA then any of the games you listed?
Not all open world games are equal, many still have relatively narrow progressions trees compared to Skyrim and have far fewer systems to QA. We shouldnt mistake graphics, literal scale or realism of weather simulations for how much QA a game has to go through.

But even if scope is comparable, maybe the Bethesda games just need more time in the kitchen. Maybe they need to change their approach. I havent played fallout but that was launched 6months after its announcement, maybe it should have been 12months. Point is the Engine seems to be a weird focus if were complaining about bugs which apparentlty the MOD community often fixes themselves.

My last experience with Bethesda was skyrim on Xbox360 and I really did not have any majors issues with the game. I poured 100s of hours into it and I cant recall bugs ruining my experience. I will wait to see their next gen project.

Last edited by Otter - on 07 May 2019

konnichiwa said:
Dulfite said:

I believe the games that were compared to, engine and bug wise earlier in the thread, were Red Dead Redemption 2 and Zero Dawn: Horizon, if I understood people's letter's correctly.

RDR2, according to VGC, is just under 20 million copies sold.

H:ZD is just under 6 million copies sold.

Skyrim is at 26 million copies sold, which is fantastic, but not much better than RDR2 has done so far, and Skyrim has been out for a long time now and this is counting remastered versions as well as VR and Switch release. The original Skyrim games, which is probably a lot more fair to compare to, were at 16.52 million if we are including Switch, and just 15.37 million if we are just counting 360/ps3. I suspect RDR2 will be closer to 30 million when its all said and done, and H:ZD to be at least 7-8 million, so Skyrim is basically right between them but certainly not blowing either of them out.

RDR2 is not really a great example of a great RPG. Also is it not a great example for being glitch free,  early weeks their were reports with people being stuck in the story because of a glitch and if you click funny glitches on youtube in RDR2 you find plenty. Skyrim passed 30 million in November 2016 before switch release/a month after PS4/xone release and before the PSVR release making it one one of the top 10 selling games ever or close to.

' The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the studio’s previous game, may have been an even bigger hit, selling 30 million copies in the five year since its release. The average Skyrim player, according to Bethesda, has spent 150 hours inside the game’s vast open world.'

Yes Skyrim is known for having bugs but it is also known for being one of best game experiences for a lot of people. In fact most hate towards Skyrim doesn't come from bethesda haters but from Fallout fans.  

I wasn't suggesting those other games have less bugs (someone else suggested that). I haven't played RDR2 or H:ZD, so I wouldn't know. I was simply responding to the sales comment, and very clearly they are in the same ballpark of sales as Skyrim if we are not counting re-releases and remastered versions. If you do want to count those, then we need to give H:ZD and RDR2 more time to have their own re-releases/remastered editions on PC, Nintendo devices, and future Xbox/PS devices, just like Skyrim has had the benefit of doing for years now.



Around the Network
Dulfite said:
konnichiwa said:

Well those companies are also the ones that don't come close to making a game that sells like Skyrim. That's basically the issue, one group says Skyrim was so unplayable while others would name it one of the best games of all times. 

I believe the games that were compared to, engine and bug wise earlier in the thread, were Red Dead Redemption 2 and Zero Dawn: Horizon, if I understood people's letter's correctly.

RDR2, according to VGC, is just under 20 million copies sold.

H:ZD is just under 6 million copies sold.

Skyrim is at 26 million copies sold, which is fantastic, but not much better than RDR2 has done so far, and Skyrim has been out for a long time now and this is counting remastered versions as well as VR and Switch release. The original Skyrim games, which is probably a lot more fair to compare to, were at 16.52 million if we are including Switch, and just 15.37 million if we are just counting 360/ps3. I suspect RDR2 will be closer to 30 million when its all said and done, and H:ZD to be at least 7-8 million, so Skyrim is basically right between them but certainly not blowing either of them out.

Pretty sure HZD has crossed the 10m barrier at least I recall a thread here on that topic.



Wyrdness said:
Dulfite said:

I believe the games that were compared to, engine and bug wise earlier in the thread, were Red Dead Redemption 2 and Zero Dawn: Horizon, if I understood people's letter's correctly.

RDR2, according to VGC, is just under 20 million copies sold.

H:ZD is just under 6 million copies sold.

Skyrim is at 26 million copies sold, which is fantastic, but not much better than RDR2 has done so far, and Skyrim has been out for a long time now and this is counting remastered versions as well as VR and Switch release. The original Skyrim games, which is probably a lot more fair to compare to, were at 16.52 million if we are including Switch, and just 15.37 million if we are just counting 360/ps3. I suspect RDR2 will be closer to 30 million when its all said and done, and H:ZD to be at least 7-8 million, so Skyrim is basically right between them but certainly not blowing either of them out.

Pretty sure HZD has crossed the 10m barrier at least I recall a thread here on that topic.

Even Guerrilla said so.



shikamaru317 said:
outlawauron said:

Neither were technically solid and Skyrim doesn't qualify as their last few. Have to remember that was 8 years ago.

I disagree on the quality of Fallout 4. I don't think it was a good game.

The main Bethesda studio in Bethesda Maryland has only released 1 game since Skyrim, Fallout 4. It got a 90 meta, far from bad. Fallout 76 wasn't developed by the main Bethesda studio, it was developed by the new Austin Texas studio they opened, and it was apparently rushed out with only 1 year of development, seemingly because Starfield got delayed out of 2018 at the last moment because Bethesda decided they wanted to release it on next-gen with the new revamped Creation Engine build, instead of on current gen with the old Creation engine build, and Zenimax wanted a game to fill Starfield's place in the 2018 release schedule.

Bethesda Game Studios is still BGS. I know the main team at Maryland is the better, but that doesn't mean that F76 is willed out of existence. As far as the meta score, I don't put much weight behind it. Game was trashed at the time and largely still is. I've read they've made the game better, but its reputation of being broken and a mess is well earned.



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

Check out MyAnimeList and my Game Collection. Owner of the 5 millionth post.

The Creation engine is based on Gamebryo technology... Which in turn is based upon Net Immerse.
It is actually a powerful engine with extremely flexible scripting capabilities and modular middle-ware support.

Often engines are based upon older prior technologies in the gaming industry anyway... For instance, the latest Call of Duty game is still using an engine derived from Quake 3 from all the way back from 1999...

And it makes sense, why scrap something that works when you can build upon it?

Engines like Unreal, Frostbite and so on are also based upon older technologies... And because of such their development pipelines/tools are actually extremely mature... So it makes sense to retain it rather than scrap it unless it is absolutely necessary... Granted if you were to compare the latest version of Unreal with the first version, they wouldn't be comparable, enough changes have taken place over time to assume they are unique variants.

In saying that, the Creation Engine needs a top-to-bottom overhaul as do allot of other game engines.- Will we see that? Who knows. But money talks... I would like Bethesda to go back to pushing the PC like they did with Morrowind and Oblivion rather than bend to the lowest common denominator (Aka. Consoles) like they did with Skyrim... But I digress.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Why? You ask,
Because of $$$