Todd Howard on ‘Starfield’ game engine: “It’s a significant overhaul”

The game director also spoke about ‘The Elder Scrolls VI’

Todd Howard has revealed more information regarding the upcoming Bethesda game, Starfield.

During a keynote session at yesterday’s Develop:Brighton Conference, Howard spoke at length about Bethesda’s previous successes and challenges, as well as the enduring legacy of their games. The topic of Starfield could not be avoided for long, however, with Howards revealing a few key details of the game during his chat with gameindustry.biz’s James Batchelor.

One of the most interesting pieces of information was the sheer scale of the creation engine changes, with Howard stating that “the overhaul on our engine is probably the largest we’ve ever had, maybe even larger than Morrowind to Oblivion”.

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Everything from animation and rendering to procedural generation and pathing has been updated in the new engine, according to Howard, who also implied that the engine is being used for both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI. “When people see the results, they’ll hopefully be as happy as we are with what’s on the screen and also how we can go about making our games,” he added.

Howard also made clear that Starfield would be a single-player experience. The game will also be on GamePass from launch, due to the purchase of Bethesda by Microsoft, alongside The Elder Scrolls IV. However, the game director also made it clear that the games are likely a long time coming, with regular updates far and few between.

“You have to balance that fatigue of wanting something versus that consumer excitement. Also, it takes time, to be frank. Preparing trailers, demos and assets take time away from development,” he said. “I’d rather spend all that time focusing on the game and prepare one big demo.”

Howard also previously noted that The Elder Scrolls VI could still be a multiplatform release, despite the studio’s acquisition by Microsoft. He said that it would be “hard to imagine” the game being restricted only to Microsoft platforms.

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