Xbox's Halo team announced in October it would be swapping from its in-house engine to Unreal Engine 5 - allowing the series to grow "more quickly and organically" than before. With this in mind, former Bethesda artist Nate Purkeypile (Skyrim, Fallout) believes Bethesda should maybe consider following a similar pathway.
Speaking to Reece Reilly of Kiwi Talkz recently, he mentioned how games "end up being better" on UE5 but admitted he doesn't think Bethesda would actually make a shift like that:
"Having made open world games with both engines, to me it's like absolutely no question that I think things would end up being better... I would be shocked if that did happen because I don't know, people also have trouble changing their minds sometimes, where they made a decision at some point and it did make sense at the time...but I think it's important to re-evaluate tech.”
He further mentioned how a lot of time during development on projects like Starfield (which he left part way through development) was allocated to getting things like rendering and animation systems up to certain standards on the in-house engine, which takes away from other aspects of development and generally makes the whole process a lot harder:
“A lot of what was done on Starfield was trying to get all these rendering systems and animation systems sort of up to snuff and it makes it really hard to even actually make the game."
Purkeypile also acknowledged how developers are already swapping their own in-house engines for Unreal Engine 5 - like CD Projekt Red and its upcoming Witcher game.
As for the benefits of this type of shift, he drew similar comparisons to Halo Studios about how UE5 is a broad tool base with a "big knowledge base that people can pull from", and projects are much easier to hire for and have people ramp up. It's also easier to "stay relevant and not always be trying to play catch up".
Nate Purkeypile recently released his "heavy metal horror game indie game" known as The Axis Unseen which has been built on Unreal Engine 5.
Do you think more Xbox teams should maybe make the leap to UE5, or would you prefer each series keeps its uniqueness intact with in-house engines? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
[source youtu.be]
Comments 26
Just make a bloody new elder scrolls game already Skyrim is out since 2011 I've done what there is to do in the game in the nearly 14 years it's out!
For Bethesda specifically no, but Creation engine does need a new iteration to bring textures and facial animation up to snuff. Like, Starfield can look really nice with vistas and some bespoke interiors, but for the most part you wouldn't call it a next gen game
Hopefully they dont use the creation engine for the next Elder Scrolls, feels like they’ve reached their limit with that engine and I dont want it to look and play like if Starfield has a fantasy setting mod.
If Starfield is anything to go by then definitely something has to change.
As ambitious as the game was it felt it’s systems it’s organic origins where from the Xbox360 days engine wise in its under systems.
Then you play say Indy on Id tech and the under systems seem a lot more modern and fluid like.
So says an artist who clearly doesn't understand that Creation engine is still used for all us insane hoarders. Unreal would fall like a house of cards with 9 billion sandwiches on board a flying Optimus Primal.
The rumor is they are experimenting with the oblivion remake/remaster. It is supposedly being built in creation but the visuals would be run through ue5. The rumor is also that Oblivion is targeting June 2025 (MAGG on xnc claims to have discussed this with people at microsoft).
I love bethesda games so I'm cool with the status quo on their games. Starfield is incredible. Skyrim and oblivion are the best games ever made. The replayability of their games is unmatched.
It's been written ad nauseum that Bugthesda, absolutely needs to stop using their engine, or upgrade it by zillion percent. Every game released over last, say 20 years screams this.
Yet Bugthesda ignores.
@Ricky-Spanish I turned 40 today. I might very well be 50 by the time The Elder Scrolls VI comes out 🤣
Same debate over and over, and same answer: exactly what this dude says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cZWCaH0Zrs
"The day they leave Creation Engine behind to produce an Unreal Engine 5 game is the day Bethesda Game Studios die".
100% agree.
What makes Bethesda great is its amazing community, you don't want to mess with that.
I’m not sure Unreal is the right fit but it would be great if they used a more modern engine that isn’t crippled by the past. You can keep updating modules, as they have done, but if the foundations are as old and rickety as they are you are starting off on the wrong foot. The fact we still get the same familiar Bethesda bugs 20 years later is laughable.
That all said as much as I want them to change engine, that is actually the least of their concerns. Had Starfield actually been a step forward in gameplay and on the same level as some of their previous RPGs then no one would be talking about the engine, no matter how rickety.
Ultimately they have bigger issues to deal with but a new engine might make them question a lot of other decisions and push their games forward. They used to be one of the industry leaders in innovation…
To me the only 2-3 things that could be improved in their future games is:
I'm not even talking the old school camera during dialogue, because the fixed it with a single option in Starfield.
So I agree some stuff could be improved, but I definitely think it should be done with iterations of the Creation Engine, rather than using a new engine, which would only result in an aweful buggy mess as they have no experience with it and as it would destroy the community.
@Markatron84 Exactly it's a joke and happy birthday my brother hope you have a great day💪💃🌟
Eww please don’t. We haven’t gotten even 1 good game from UE 5 yet. I play Bethesda games for years because of the insane mod support and despite flaws I wouldn’t want them to change that just so they can make the same game as everyone else. The engine was good enough to make me switch from Playstation to Xbox this gen and there isn’t a single unreal engine game that could’ve done the same🤷♂️
Like Steel76 said, would be interesting if more Xbox development teams would use ID Tech engine.
Just mix up what is best per game bases. IDT, UE5 or a custom one.
(After seeing Indy (and the Doom Eternal trailer) I would’ve liked to see either Perfect Dark or HALO use it as well.)
If they do that they will need double the time to release a game with triple the bugs 😂.
He must’ve been paid by someone. If he never believed in it why would he now?
Blaming the "outdated" engine for Starfield being terrible is cope. No loading screens when flying from planet to space would not save it. They built a boring universe with boring characters and quests.
No, it would not. Creation Engine is made for Bethesda RPGs and use Unreal Engine would be an enourmous amount of work to even get started, let alone for the devs to master it.
They did a great job with Starfield, I don't see why would they change the engine.
I truly believe the creation engine is the reason Bethesda games take so long to develop. I personally don't feel like it would be a big problem if I could only store 25 sandwiches instead of a thousand. Obviously this guy knows what he's talking about. Every time Bethesda releases a game, it looks like something that came out 8 to 10 years ago.
They would be better on the ID TECH engine. Machine Games did an amazing job with Indiana Jones! I personally have always loved ID TECH since Quake.
Also, Halo should have been moved to ID TECH, not UE. Microsoft even owns the ID TECH engine now so they wouldn't have to pay out to EPIC. While UE is easy to work with, its unfortunately very poorly optimized for the most part.
The creation engine needs an update (and has gotten one in Starfield ) but it is pretty versatile from a modding, and world building perspective (for queuing sidequests) and based on the games I have seen in unreal I think that while unreal can make pretty games I don’t think it will be as useful for Bethesda style games.
Modding has shown that the creation engine can render a beautiful game (all my mods are texture mods) but it would cook a lot of gpus. I literally had skryim force me to upgrade after my lighting mods were too much to handle.
Duh Bethesda color and art direction seems very outdated it’s bad enough they like that rpg November in 2024 still
As a former E$O player, ZoS’s MMO might be a cash farm with some nasty monetisation practices, however, technically it’s a triumph and perfectly demonstrates what could be achieved with TES if Bethesda dropped that god-awful creation engine.
Take the player housing for one example. In E$O you have the power to create whatever you like. You can manipulate objects on every axis, make precision placements, there’s no grip point where the item is going to swing limply from and be at the mercy of crappy physics. More importantly, the objects will stay where you put them. They don’t pop off the racks, travel up walls or fall into oblivion. They stay where they’re placed. This allows for some really stunning player-creations. It makes the player-building worth the time and effort.
The ship building is wonderful in Starfield but even that is limited and takes place in a different screen while the decoration of ships and buildings is still the headache it was back in Skyrim’s Hearthfire.
That’s just one mechanic, without mentioning how much nicer the character models are in E$O. It really does make the limitations of the creation engine and how little they’ve done to improve it glaring obvious.
bethesda games would be better on anything
ue5 is the worst what happend to gaming for a long time
terrible badly optimized tool for lazy asset flip
In my opinion the unreal engine has both advantages and disadvantages. First the unreal engine is geared towards shooters and does offer superior graphics. The main disadvantage is that the unreal engine doesn't allow for tons of customization, which is something that a game like Elder Scrolls needs. For something like Halo or Gears of War using the Unreal engine makes perfect sense, for other games not so much.
The creation engine is the least of Starfield and Bethesda’s problems and stutter engine 5 would have probably made the game even worse.
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