The Elder Scrolls 6 ● Why Bethesda is not changing the engine for TES 6.

Surely you have noticed more than once that in any discussion of the Elder Scrolls, and even more so the upcoming sixth part, there are many comments about the outdated game engine, a lot of anger about this, the game is predicted to fail by default if the company does not use the new engine for it I am increasingly convinced that many people do not fully understand what the engine itself is, and how exactly it can affect the game, but in this case we are interested in TES 6.

As we all know, Bethesda, has been using its engine since the time of the 3rd part of Morrowind, which underwent significant modifications, at some point it was renamed, but in general the so-called engine has reached our days based on exactly the code that was written in the early 2000s.

And many rightly ask questions, how is it, why do we need modern games on the ancient engine? And this is where the misunderstanding arises. What is an engine, if conditionally and in short, it is just a set of scripts, programs working together, as well as tools that allow the developer to use them, find their application.

Each area meets the necessary needs, if the engine, for example, is focused on creating sports car simulators, in it will have a lot of code responsible for the behavior of objects in a collision, during skidding, during braking, in other words, responsible for the mechanics of driving.

If the engine is focused more on shooters, then it will have a lot of code responsible for shooting in the game, recoil, bullet flight, ricochets and so on. Any engine can be adapted for all needs, for example, as was the case with Need For Speed ​​The Run, which was created on Frostbite 2, an engine that was initially completely unsuitable for car simulators.

The developers wrote their own code for the existing code, which is responsible for driving. Modifying it over time. Thus, the engine has become more diverse. And now new parts of this franchise are coming out on this engine. Even now, you can take the oldest game, the oldest engine, shovel it completely, rewrite all the code in it so that it meets modern standards, connect all modern graphic libraries, write many new files that will add additional features to the game, which will be done on this Everything is radically changed and rewritten, the engine will not be called differently, since this is a new bureaucratic red tape with patents, brand registration and so on, as a result, we actually get a completely different set of programs and scripts that meet all modern standards, but Many people know the story when in part 3 of Fallout a carriage was literally put on the head of the protagonist and we were moving in accelerated mode along the rails, and it seemed that we were standing in this carriage that was moving.

The fact is that at that time there was no necessary code that would be responsible for the driving mechanics, and we had to resort to such a trick, but this was done only in order to save a lot of time. After all, driving in this game is an isolated case, and creating a whole mechanics from scratch for this was simply not profitable.

But already in the same Skyrim, for example, the game begins with the fact that several NPCs are riding in a carriage that rolls slowly, which tells us that the mechanics of the ride were still written, since riding became more common in Bethesda games ...

Of course, for some people this cart took off and began to behave in a strange way, but this is a completely different story, namely bugs. Commentators who complain about the old engine more and more swear at them. Judging by myself, during the game in Skyrim, and I played it decently, I went twice inside and out, I met well, maybe a couple of three bugs, without exaggeration.

As well as the opportunities that they provide us. The size of the game worlds, the amount of content in them, complete freedom of action, up to the fact that at the very beginning of the game, you can already go anywhere and create complete madness around you.

Even if you hire a hundred testers, you will still be able to predict the actions of the players. very difficult. The larger the project, the more freedom of action is given to the players, the more likely it is that at some point there will be a bug.

It is obvious. And the engine has absolutely nothing to do with it, as I told you earlier that this is just a complex set of scripts and programs working together. As for animation, graphics, destructible objects. As you already understand now, all this can be written, added, modified, changed.

And then the question probably arises, so why change something when you can take, for example, any engine that already has such elements as support for all modern graphics and physics technologies and make the 6th part on it. But here it is important to understand that in this case, it is much more profitable to write new modules that will be responsible for supporting modern graphic capabilities than to write from scratch many and many things that have already been used in games from a gazebo, a pumping system, dialogues, a combat system, which is also possible In general, to put it simply, using an example that will be clear to everyone - why would you buy a new computer, so that it would pull some kind of game, when you can only buy a video card for an existing one.

If you don't have enough RAM, you can buy it too, but for example, why do you need the case itself, if all the components can be placed in the old one. In general, the engine is plasticine in the hands of the master, and everything depends only on the developers themselves, on what percentage of the engine's capabilities they use.

Give two different developers the same engine, they will create different games, and one can be very high quality, the other will be lousy. Of course, Bethesda could take someone else's engine, spend several years on it, to master it, add the missing elements to fit their needs, fit into the concept of their games, magic, crafting, a pumping system, etc.

But time for it will take a whole lot, the result will most likely be the same, and maybe even worse. Since changing the familiar code, in which you already know everything, into something completely different, and mastering it, it is very costly in all respects.

And the output will most likely be even more bugs, even more unfinished functions, but there will be even more time wasted. I hope I explained in detail for you why the company does not want to abandon its familiar engine, and that the engine itself is a rather arbitrary and vague concept, and TEC 6 does not have to be the same in everything as Skyrim, if it is created on the basis of It can be a completely different game from the technological and graphic side, everything will depend on how much the company decides to bother changing the existing code and introducing a new one.

But as we can see, there are already movements in this direction, the new technology has been introduced and, as we were shown, is already in use. I hope comments about the outdated engine and the fact that the company urgently needs to start using the new one will become smaller.

Since in reality everything is completely different and I tried to explain to you why. Perhaps I missed some things, you can add me in the comments, but otherwise I could tell you about all this for another 20 minutes, going into details, but in general, I hope, I stated it as simply and understandably for everyone, even for those who understands nothing about this at all ..