Starfield has a release date

[Wrathbone]

They don’t stop developing, they ramp up team size.

That's not a quick solution, though. Speaking from experience, simply upping the size of a development team does not typically increase development speed for maybe 2 years. And especially if you're changing the engine, which is what everything else is built upon. We've had new developers who have gone and changed base code of our product without understanding the implications of that, which then breaks all sorts of things in ways both overt and hidden (until some horrible later point). The value of experience and learning the quirks of a particular bit of software cannot be overstated. I dread to think what sort of unholy traps the Creation engine has hidden in its depths, given its age and that it's been cobbled together like Frankenstein's monster.

[Mantis]

They're going to have to make the jump sooner or later. It's only going to get worse for them for future releases if they offer up subpar games that are massively surpassed by other titles that take advantage of more modern engines.

Unreal is a pretty big industry standard. I'm sure it wouldn't take them years to adapt to it if they started their next project on it.

[Maturin]

The original Gamebryo engine was apparently very modular, so I never worked out why they couldn't just focus on redeveloping new elements one at a time. But instead they went down the path of just advancing the engine as a whole and relaunching it as Creation.

To be fair Skyrim/FO4 did have key improvements in every area (apart from lighting maybe) compared to Oblivion as a result. Plus, the physics and tracking of entities is genuinely impressive. There's a huge amount of interconnectivity going on underneath the bonnet. It's why it just isn't that simple for them to start using UE, I don't even know if it's remotely suited to stuff like TES. We'd potentially be talking about an entirely different design philosophy for a huge team who are all deeply embedded in their in-house engine.

It's possible they took a wrong turn after Skyrim/FO4. They could have perhaps put more effort into (or delegated) FO '76 using Creation while starting a new engine from scratch for future games, although this might have required a new team of developers to be brought on board. They would have needed the right people with the right skills to hit the ground running.

The problem is, they're sort of operating inside their own bubble. It's no easy thing to burst it.

[Animalmother]

What does Oblivion Online use? I'm pretty sure it's a completely different engine.

[Wrathbone]

Elder Scrolls Online? Yeah, different engine which has none of the physics or object tracking that Creation has.

[Animalmother]

Elder Scrolls Online? Yeah, different engine which has none of the physics or object tracking that Creation has.

That's the one. I suppose we could give Bethesda the benefit of the doubt and that ES6 might be a new engine.

Could you imagine the clusterfuck that would be on release

[Sly Boots]

I think there's a close to zero chance that ES6 won't be using the Creation engine in some incarnation tbh.

[Hatredsheart]

[Wrathbone]

I’ve only played a few hours of Shattered Space, but I have thoughts. First and probably most crucially, it’s not going to sway anyone who isn’t a fan of Starfield in the first place. As someone who is a fan, the experience arriving on the Va’ruun homeworld is frustrating at best, mind-numbingly tedious at worst. Bethesda have truly exceeded themselves in railroading you down a series of endless banal conversations about esoteric space religion and how you’re some kind of chosen one and blah fucking blah, when most people will just want a few minutes to actually explore the damn place. And then you get foisted onto the city council, each member more boring than the last, their only purpose being to lore dump on you for bloody ages and then give you a fetch quest. When I did get to explore, it’s a mundane, rocky hellhole with some weird space magic going on. Bestill my beating heart.

Maybe there’s more to it and this is just a rough start, but I suspect it’ll be more of the same. There was one entertaining sidequest where you mediate a duel, with opportunities to meddle and profit from it, so hopefully there are more of those hiding away. This feels like a missed opportunity for Bethesda to showcase their very best, though, and instead they’ve created some truly awful dialogue to plod you through an uninspiring landscape. Real shame.

[Sly Boots]

Just saw a review thumbnail with a title of Sharted Space

[Wrathbone]

[Animalmother]

I reinstalled Starfield a while back and played for a few weeks trying to get back into it. Uninstalled once I finally admitted to myself that there is little enjoyment to be found in this barren wasteland of a game.

[Wrathbone]

I've very much enjoyed my replay of the base game, but Shattered Space doesn't do anything to sway people who didn't enjoy it the first time.

[Snowy]

I reinstalled Starfield a while back and played for a few weeks trying to get back into it. Uninstalled once I finally admitted to myself that there is little enjoyment to be found in this barren wasteland of a game.

I'm with you, I couldn't wait to uninstall it tbh