this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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this shuts down rumors that bethesda will move to unreal engine for ES6

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[–] zecg@lemmy.world 90 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Translation: it's the same shitty gamebryo they're always using.

[–] LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world 1 points 8 minutes ago

By that logic source 2 is just the quake 2 engine.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 46 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not content to look outdated in 2015 or 2023, now they're going to look outdated in 2030.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 37 points 1 day ago (4 children)

2015? that codebase started in morrowind. and say what you want about that game but it is not a looker. it launched the same year as metroid prime.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

And Unreal Engine started on 1995. This argument always shows people's ignorance of software development. When the first pieces of the engine were built is not why it's shitty. It's because they haven't invested money into it where it matters. (Unreal Engine also has some serious issues. It just looks prettier.)

[–] lime@feddit.nu 1 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

i mean, a 23 year old codebase is bound to have some tech debt.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

They rebuild the engine to be 64-bit (instead of 32-bit) for Fallout 4, and that version is what Skyrim Special Edition is running on

[–] lime@feddit.nu 1 points 5 hours ago

that's not a complete rewrite. hell, depending on how it was architected it may just be a recompile

[–] Benchamoneh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (2 children)

Very probably yes, but it will also have an extensive feature set and stable, mature functions that work well after 20+ years of development.

A mature codebase is often a double edged sword I agree. But it's not always a good to just throw away all that progress.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 1 points 10 hours ago

in bethesdas case though?

a similar thing happened with arma reforger a few years ago, it was supposed to be a tech demonstrator for a new engine but it turned out to still be the same codebase as operation flashpoint from 1995. the engine is solid but it's super annoying to program for, they have this custom scripting language that's completely batshit insane because everything is infix by default, and an ui toolkit that is written as c++ classes meaning the actual game has a compiler in it for a subset of c++. so the scripts can be edited at runtime but if there is an error in the ui the game crashes at startup. people were hoping they'd finally switch to something that made sense but no.

[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world -2 points 7 hours ago

They don't work well anymore though, that's the whole point. Bethesda's codebase is past "mature", it's just straight up old and outdated now. Has been for a decade at the very least. Their games have looked and performed noticeably worse than their contemporaries for a good while now.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I didn't think Skyrim was too outclassed compared to its peers in 2011, given that it was so much larger and doing so much more than a lot of them under the hood. But Fallout 4 came out alongside The Witcher 3, and the difference between the two was night and day. Then of course Baldur's Gate 3 next to Starfield, and I have to scratch my head wondering what the hell Bethesda is doing still running this tech stack.

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

Todd Howard doesn't know how to make games any other way.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (3 children)

It's not entirely out of question that they'll use Unreal for graphics while retaining Gamebryo for gameplay. That's kinda how the Oblivion remaster works. And might be best of both worlds if they manage to make Unreal not suck in terms of performance and don't fall for the photorealism trap

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I fucking hope not. Unreals's graphics engine looks terrible

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 hours ago

It doesn't if you disable TAA and shit, but by default it's horrible

[–] msage@programming.dev 1 points 8 hours ago

Bugs, bugs, always the same bugs.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I think graphics are pretty low on my list of priorities for how those games need to modernize. Starfield looks pretty alright in sheer fidelity, but the faces don't animate well, the conversation system is dated even compared to The Outer Worlds doing basically the same thing, and the engine seems (for some reason) incapable of putting together a proper cut-scene.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 22 hours ago

Ah to be fair I haven't played Starfield or even watched too many videos. I also didn't like FO4 much so I was pretty much running with the assumption that they hadn't changed much since 2011

Still, they may not need as many engine programmers if they reduce what their in-house engine needs to do. Could free up finances to hire more people to work on the meat and bones of the game. Or they could just pocket the difference and not give a fuck about making a good game, that seems quite likely too.

[–] mcforest@feddit.org 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Morrowind? Gamebryo is the continuation of the NetImmerse engine. Development started in 1997 with the first game released in 1999.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 8 points 1 day ago

yeah morrowind used netimmerse, first time bethesda used it.

[–] NachBarcelona@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think Gamebryo (neé NetImmerse) is even a bit older than Morrowind.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 4 points 1 day ago

yeah it's not bethesda's engine. but my point was about where the codebase for the creation engine comes from, and that's the morrowind code.

[–] sudoMakeUser@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I love how the Gamebryo site is still up. I thought it was funny it was still up like 10 years ago when I looked last, and it's still up now without any changes.

www.gamebryo.com

[–] IronBird@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] sudoMakeUser@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] IronBird@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

site doesnt load for me, says site account suspended

[–] sudoMakeUser@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Works fine for me on mobile and desktop.

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 1 points 10 hours ago

It's broken for me too, account suspended. Something about not being supported in the user's environment.