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[Opinion piece] Starfield Killed My Hype For The Elder Scrolls 6
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this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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Without upgrading to a new enginge, something that the entire industry has been begging Bethesda to do now for at least a decade, ES6 will feel exactly the same as pretty much all of their games since Oblivion, with the same "go here, kill everything indiscriminately, pick up trinket, deliver trinket" gameplay loop. ES lore is top tier and I'm always down for more of that, but they need to update their shit.
How would a engine change affect the game design philosophy of Bethesda?
Performance? Visuals? Alright. But game design?
Creation Engine powers Starfield and Fallout New Vegas. Quests can be complex, dynamic, with multiple endings, with lots of ways to approach them. Or they can be flat fetch quests. The tools allow both and everything in between.
Bethesda just chooses to use the current game design framework and would choose the same on any other engine.
They are actually updating their game design principles. They stopped using game design documents, they simplified the quests, they try to make sure every play through gets to see as much content as possible. Maybe they should stop updating.
A newer engine would get rid of chests hidden into the ground for storing NPC’s items.
I mean, this is an obviously laughable example but you can be sure that other quirks of the engine are holding back creativity and performance.
As I said Creation Engine did mot stop another studio from being creative.
They are not being hold back by Creation Engine in game design, they are stuck in a design philosophy and production strategy that until now has and got them lots of praise and sales.
They use the chest trick because saves reworking the inventory and container system. That would take time and left the game almost the same, so they don’t.
If they used Unreal engine they’d have to build a new inventory and container system from scratch, who knows if they would end up taking the hidden chest idea (it mostly works) and porting it?
The “Update your engine Bethesda” discussion is valid from many points of view, but most of the problems with current Bethesda releases are cultural. They don’t test nearly enough, they don’t have a “fun” game until a couple months before release, they don’t coordinate the content and mechanics production in any way, the quest writing is a free for all.
And until now things worked out. So they refuse to address those issues.
Actually, you can argue that they are still limited by what the engine can do - which, in turn, means it affects game design due to the fact they might want to implement an idea, but either they would need a hacky way to do it (like trains in Fallout 3 being a fucking equippable hat with an NPC running underneath the map, which is probably why their Fallout games don’t have drivable vehicles) or simply cannot due to technical limitations of the engine.
This is like saying a good wood carver can still be good if they have shoddy tools, when the reality is that a good craftsman is only limited by the quality of tools they have. If I can’t fully realize my wood carving because my knife is too blunt and do the best I could with what I have for an inferior design, is that my fault or the tool’s fault?
I thing you are looking at this backwards.
They have the money and resources to change engine. They CHOSE not to. Because they can make the game they want to make faster and more efficiently on Creation Engine. If they could not make the game they want they would be forced to move to another game engine.
If their idea for Elder Scrolls 6 can be made in CE they won’t change engines. If it does not, they aren’t some indie studio, they have the resources to swap.
Two things: 1) You’re making it sound like swapping engines is incredibly easy (it’s not, and you have to train staff on how to utilize it from the ground up and that can take a while), and 2) you’re probably right on why they keep using CE, and the sad reality is that Bethesda absolutely intentionally designs uncooked barebones games because they realized they can just have the fandom make actual interesting content, or QoL changes. They also know that ~~Creation~~ Gamebryo Engine does limit them a lot to what they can do, but rather than going through the cost and time of changing over engines, they just let the fandom create the script extenders that are available for literally every single game of theirs since Morrowind so modders can literally do things the base game can’t let them do.
So this is more of a case where the craftsman has shoddy tools, but they don’t care because they’ll churn out a piece-of-crap and have their audience improve it for them for free. And then the craftsman will have the gall to try and get a cut of the audience’s work somehow.
It’s not easy to change engines. But they could afford it, if they could justify it.
I think you overestimate how many people actually install or care about mods. Many people just seems to like what Bethesda does.
Oblivion was a smash hit on Xbox without mods. Since that the main sellers seems to be the console versions.
Last time I’ll respond to you since it seems you’re a Bethesda fanboy - or at least a very ardent defender.
Then why did Beth go out of their way to include mod support for consoles for Skyrim and Fallout 4, as well as announce mod support for console versions of Starfield? Plus people were clamoring for mods on console versions of their games even going back as far as Morrowind - but their games back then were more complete, so you are correct in that more people were okay with not having mods because at least the games were decent enough.
During 2006? Yeah, you’re correct - but interesting you’re bringing up Oblivion instead of Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and even Starfield. Y’know, the games that have been pretty devoid of any worthwhile vanilla content.
Wait, you think I’m defending them?
Making statements about why shitty games are not the fault of old technology is not a defense of said shitty games.
They always make the same game, they ship it broken and keep it broken. The best game in their franchises since at least since Morrowind was made by another studio. The lore is derivative and as deep as a puddle. They sell their games based on bullet points and features and not quality.
I don’t like their recent output at all. I find their design philosophy and quest design outdated and lacking, recent games feel older that previous ones.
But none of those things are the engine’s fault. They ship exactly the game they want to ship, and use the engine that lets them do it as efficiently as possible. If they are limited at all is in their production organization or lack thereof.
Are you denying that Skyrim, Fallour 3 and 4, or Starfield are commercial successes? Even Starfield was a critically acclaimed game for a while.
Most people are okay without mods because they can’t install them in their platform of choice so they don’t expect them. They have heard about them in articles and videos and find them an oddity of PC gaming, at most.
It is really easy to fall into an echo chamber and believing most of the people that buys Bethesda games are fixing them with mods. That’s an option only for a minority of players, and of those many won’t install them. They play 30~60 hours and won’t launch the game ever again.
And if they used a new engine they would have to rework the inventory and container system, and if they did that perhaps they would innovate on that system in some way since they are making big changes anyway.
They don’t want to. They have a formula, and the public and the market have spent decades saying that it’s good enough and want “Skyrim in Space”
If they want to change how inventory works they can, in whatever engine they are using. But why would they?
Also, I find pretty ironic to expect “Innovation” in a game with a number 6 attached to it, from a studio known for doing 3 franchises so similar to each other in gameplay and features that are used to describe each other. And to blame the tech for the lack of it.
Yea I like your explanation. It worked until now
I’m sure that many people in the studio are having a bad time with how quick the internet discourse has gone into “Starfield Actually Bad” territory. It’s not easy refining that kind of feedback.
BUT. BUT. I’m not sure about the “until now” because Starfield has sold incredibly well, even for a game launched directly in game pass and not supporting PS5.
Even if internet gaming people don’t like the game, the market said it’s ok. BioWare survived a few blunders until destroying their brand, and Blizzard still goes strong.
Limitations don't get in the way of creativity, they produce it. Listening to people who have no clue how to make a good game, though, will definitely stifle creativity.