Bethesda promises larger maps, better AI, and livelier cities for Starfield and The Elder...

[Polycount]

Something to look forward to: It's been years since Bethesda has actively talked about any of its in-the-works AAA games, but based on an announcement in 2018, we know that two are in development: Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6. Both games are largely still shrouded in mystery, but studio head Todd Howard dropped a couple interesting tidbits about them today. For example, Starfield is set to feature Bethesda's "biggest" map to date.

That's notable because Bethesda's maps are already absolutely massive, even in aging titles like Skyrim and Oblivion (and especially Fallout 76). Indeed, some would argue that the playable areas were a bit too large, and lacked enough compelling content to fill in the empty space as a result.

Regardless, whether you fall into that camp or not, the way that Howard and his team have gone about creating Starfield's massive map is quite intriguing.

Instead of opting for traditional handcrafted world design, the folks over at Bethesda are employing procedural generation to create massive regions quickly. Bethesda has used procedural generation in the past, but it sounds like it will play a bigger role here.

If you're worried about how Bethesda's aging (and almost archaic) Creation Engine will handle all this additional scope, Howard hopes to put those fears to rest.

According to him, the engine has been materially upgraded in the past several years, receiving numerous improvements to world rendering (hopefully that means less pop-in and visual glitches), animation, and AI.

These three things have always been pain points for players in past Bethesda games, so we're happy to see Howard & co. taking them seriously this time around.

As PC gamers, though, we really just hope Bethesda has finally stopped tying physics engines to game framerates. It'd be nice to play at over 60 FPS without wagons, NPCs, and wildlife going haywire, thank you very much.

A screenshot from Bethesda's 2018 Starfield teaser trailer.

Some other useful information released by Howard recently includes news on cities and NPCs in future games. Apparently, the former will be bigger, livelier, and more realistic than ever before.

That should be a welcome piece of news for anyone who played Skyrim: the game was visually stunning back in 2011, but its cities never truly lived up to their full potential due to the restrictions of the consoles available at the time.

As for NPCs, there will be more of them this time around, and they'll also be more important to the gameplay experience, though Howard didn't deign to offer any further specifics on that front.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/87424-bethesda-promises-larger-maps-better-ai-livelier-cities.html

 

[noel24]

I've heard those promises before and Fallout 76 it was called.

 

[SinEaterr]

When I see Todd I know it's BS.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Radiant AI
All of this just works
16 times the detail
There will be no pay to win
We aren't planning on doing anything about it


The "gamebryo" creation engine can't handle anything else. They need a revamped system to handle improvements, and nobody in their right mind should trust bethesda.

 

[Ozmiz]

The Mod community ended up playing a huge roll in the success of Skyrim.... so much so that people are still faithfully playing it in 2020.

Whatever they release, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mod community doesn't improve it many times over.

 

[kimo1]

The Mod community ended up playing a huge roll in the success of Skyrim.... so much so that people are still faithfully playing it in 2020.

Whatever they release, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mod community doesn't improve it many times over.

Didn't they say once that they are using a new engine for TES6? Does it even have modding support?

 

[winjer]

Probably just another batch of false promises from Bethesda and Tod Howard.
Microsoft should fire this guy and start anew, with a better leadership for Bethesda.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Didn't they say once that they are using a new engine for TES6? Does it even have modding support?

No, todd confirmed during the fallout 76 launch that both starfield and tes6 are using the creation engine, because they "understand the tools" and can "make games quickly".

 

[m4a4]

Didn't they say once that they are using a new engine for TES6? Does it even have modding support?

Another article I saw said that the game engine upgrades will also improve modding (or something like that). So basically, yes, you will still be able to mod with the engine as easily as before (presumably)...

 

[mbrowne5061]

If you're worried about how Bethesda's aging (and almost archaic) Creation Engine will handle all this additional scope, Howard hopes to put those fears to rest...
As PC gamers, though, we really just hope Bethesda has finally stopped tying physics engines to game framerates. It'd be nice to play at over 60 FPS without wagons, NPCs, and wildlife going haywire, thank you very much

Besthda isn't "tying" in the physics engine to the framerate for the lulz. It was a hacky solution back when game physics was in it's infancy, and it exists at the very foundation of Creation. There is no way to effectively untie the two unless you rebuild the engine from the ground-up - best you can do are some hacks on top of the hacks, which still leaves you with a mess.

The fact is Creation was showing its age back when Skyrim launched. The hardware of the PS3 and X360 both still made hacky solutions to physics somewhat desirable, due to their limited power compared to PC. But that stopped being the case with the XB1 and PS4. Ultimately, Creation should be put out to pasture. I don't intend on buying another Bethesda game that uses Creation - not until well after its release, and the modders have finished applying their own hacks.

 

[Polycount]

Besthda isn't "tying" in the physics engine to the framerate for the lulz. It was a hacky solution back when game physics was in it's infancy, and it exists at the very foundation of Creation. There is no way to effectively untie the two unless you rebuild the engine from the ground-up - best you can do are some hacks on top of the hacks, which still leaves you with a mess.

The fact is Creation was showing its age back when Skyrim launched. The hardware of the PS3 and X360 both still made hacky solutions to physics somewhat desirable, due to their limited power compared to PC. But that stopped being the case with the XB1 and PS4. Ultimately, Creation should be put out to pasture. I don't intend on buying another Bethesda game that uses Creation - not until well after its release, and the modders have finished applying their own hacks.

I appreciate the background, that's very interesting. I wonder how they went about fixing it for Fallout 76? I was surprised that news wasn't considered a bigger deal at the time, when that patch rolled out.

 

[Evernessince]

No, todd confirmed during the fallout 76 launch that both starfield and tes6 are using the creation engine, because they "understand the tools" and can "make games quickly".

That's an instant RIP IMO.

There's only so much you can update an engine from 1996 before you need a total rewrite.

I really don't think moving to computer generated levels is going to help them at all. I have yet to play a game that procedurally generated levels that feel anywhere near as good as hand crafted ones. The only advantage to this method is that you can get more "content" with less effort but this makes zero sense for a majority of AAA games as they can afford to handcraft that content.

Bethesda should focus on improving quality of existing content, not adding a boatload more boring filler to it's upcoming games.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I hope that Bethesda is up to the challenge because, let's face it, Elder Scrolls VI is going to have some pretty BIG shoes to fill. Skyrim was one of the greatest games that I've ever played in my life and it had a HUGE world map. That map has since been eclipsed by games like The Witcher III and Far Cry 4. I expect Elder Scrolls VI to break all the open-world map size records.

 

[CanAqua]

No, todd confirmed during the fallout 76 launch that both starfield and tes6 are using the creation engine, because they "understand the tools" and can "make games quickly".

They should have Todd run for president I'm sure he could win on lies alone... but seriously. if they want these games to be better they will have to move on from the engine they used from Skyrim. Does faster building mean better ...HELL no!

 

[GamerNerves]

The procedural generation is intriguing, since in many games depending on the complexity, it makes the maps feel unpredictable. If the grind is fun, I'm sure a smart procedular solution can create more engaging levels than the ones in Skyrim - comparing even to Oblivion, there is no way to make the caves really worse than they were. There is nothing wrong in having linear caves, but in this case it's easy to improve from there. I'm sure they are not generating major cities and places like that though, so I wouldn't worry too much about not having anything handcrafted. Funny to see how the AI works in a procedurally generated enviroment.

They should listen to their fans about having improved tech, since games are after all the result of computing technology. Bethesda's games have never been very tech oriented, but you should move with times by offering the least minimum what is expected. What I really wish to see are those untied physics, no weird feeling mouse, 144 Hz support, ultrawide support, PC specific UI, alt+tab without problems, some enchanced audio support for headphones and utilization of many CPU cores and NVME drives for faster load times and to aid modders.

Skyrim and especially Fallout 4, the latter for being a newer game, were disappointing tech wise, since the bad performance made the games often not enjoyable. Skyrim on PC was mostly fine, but the tiny cities were a ridiculous design choice. Why not to do big cities with loading screens like in Oblivion is beyond my comprehension.
Games being tech products makes them either strangled or enhanced and more enjoyable by the tech they use. Good engine and smart programming solutions are the key to make your creative work shine. I hope Bethesda can finally tilt their view to understand this.

 

[jpuroila]

Larger maps, better graphics, and no doubt a worse game in terms of writing, world building, and likely gameplay as well.