Lead dev of Fallout's biggest mod is "really worried" Fallout 5 will use Bethesda's aging Creation Engine, and I am, too — "it needs to be overhauled"

Will Bethesda's faraway upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG sequel Fallout 5 use the same Creation Engine that the studio's used for all of its other recent games? It's unclear right now, but Dean Carter — the project lead of the incredible game-sized Fallout: London mod for Fallout 4 from Team FOLON — really hopes that it won't, or that it will at least be substantially upgraded.

The DNA of the Creation Engine has been at the heart of Bethesda's games for over 20 years, with its predecessor, Gamebryo, used for The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, and Fallout 3 (as well as Obsidian's New Vegas), with Creation utilized for The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76. It was then used for Starfield, too, with a creatively named Creation Engine 2 upgrade.

There's a lot to love about the Creation Engine — the physics-based interactivity it enables is particularly great — but it also has some major shortcomings that has Carter wishing Bethesda would either move on or significantly improve it.

"I’m really worried that they’re gonna keep going with the Creation Engine," he told Esports.net. "I understand that it is proprietary. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of pluses to it. I’m not just someone that’s going to sit there and lie and say it’s a terrible engine. It could be better, yes, but it’s not a bad engine but I do think it started to show its age. It needs to be overhauled somewhat."

"Load screens and optimization, without a doubt," he continued when asked what the biggest issues with the Creation Engine are. "That was our biggest complaint, rightly so from the public, that our game wasn’t optimized, and that’s because ... we as gamers did not want load screens. So we built things like the East Minster, which ... is notoriously one of the more unstable areas in the mod, and we were just trying to literally slap down walls on anything to optimize it by the end."

"If they have to upgrade it, that’s what they need to solve: get rid of the load screens and allow better optimization."

Indeed, Carter's comments echo a sentiment I frequently see from players of Bethesda's games, which is that they have far too many loading screens and have major performance problems in dense "cells" — AKA, the different zones Bethesda's maps are broken up into.

Games like Skyrim and Fallout feature large outdoor cells, along with numerous detailed interior cells that you have to load into and out of. Because of this, exploring the map requires dealing with frequent, arguably immersion-breaking loading screens.

Interior cells are used because without them, having lots of locations explorable as part of a larger outdoor cell causes framerate dips and stutters; Fallout 4's Boston area is infamous for these issues, and as Carter explains, Fallout: London's developers struggled to contend with them while sticking to its vision of having as few loading screens as possible.

With most open-world games now seamless and without any loading screens at all, Creation Engine titles and their reliance on them feel increasingly dated. It's something I've really come to hate about them, honestly, so I'm in full agreement with Carter that the engine needs an overhaul to address these limitations.

And hey, maybe some upgrades will bring fun stuff, too. "If they can overhaul it, then there’s no reason why they couldn’t push its limits and start adding things like drivable cars, maybe even metro systems like what we built in Fallout: London," Carter added. "Riders would be a great one. We have horses in Skyrim. I don’t see why they couldn’t get something like that in Fallout 5, too."

How do you feel about Bethesda games and the Creation Engine? Do their frequent loading screens bother you a lot, or do you ultimately not mind them much? Share your thoughts.

Follow Windows Central on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!