Games

The problem with Unreal Engine is (and always has been) that Epic makes the engine to make the game they're currently working on. So right now it is a Fortnite engine. Previously it was a Gears of War engine. (Maybe throw Paragon in between.) It started out as the engine for Unreal Tournament.

So if you want to take that engine and start making a different type of game, it's not necessarily going to have the tools you need. It's not necessarily even going to do what you need it to do at the base engine level. Not that it couldn't, but Epic doesn't give a shit. So they give you all the source code and support for building your own version of the engine so you can add the features you need.

You want to make a vast, persistent, open world with vast dungeons you can enter and explore? Yeah you're going to have to build support for that in the engine yourself. You want to do it without loading screens? Better get deep into that engine code. You want to have vehicles or mounts? NPCs, companions, AI enemies? When they hadn't added them to Fortnite yet, totally up to you to figure out, and probably through modifying the engine. Need to make major rendering improvements? Better dig in. Problems with the art pipeline lacking features you need

Every time you touch engine code, that's new tech debt. If a new version of the engine comes out, you have to integrate the changes. The longer the project goes on, the harder that becomes. Then Epic finally comes out with the feature you built yourself (say vehicles) but its only partly the way you did it. Now you're fucked and you have to decide right there: strip out your changes, switch to theirs and redo most of your work, or, stop taking engine upgrades and integrate new features piecemeal. Now you're in tech debt hell.

Almost every developer starts off with saying, "we'll use the engine as is, no engine changes allowed!" Three months later the cynical director is having a high level meeting about allowing a major feature get implemented in engine code. But it will be alright, they tell themselves. 3-5 years later they're up to their eyeballs in tech debt of engine changes, and realizing Amazing Game 2 either needs to be built using the old version of the engine they're stuck on from 2-4 years ago, or built from the ground up on a new version of the engine.

I'd be thinking long and hard before switching to UE5 if I were Bethesda. And they have the advantage of having access to some of the best Unreal Engine developers in the world (Obsidian, The Coalition) now that they're part of Microsoft. They're also probably getting a bunch of pressure to make the change as the studios create a corps of experts.

If I were them I would be very tempted to make the necessary changes to Creation Engine, and stay far, far away from Unreal. Sacrifice a year or two and your top engine devs to overhaul the pain points of Creation Engine, keep full control of your pipelines and versioning, and make the game you want to make, not the one Epic wants you to make. You can even make awesome DLC or a smaller sequel game on the old branched engine while the overhaul takes place, and just have a small core team working out the kinks on the new system.

I guess my point is, tech debt is not the point, because there will always be tech debt. It's a much bigger decision than that.

But arguing over whether or not you should use this engine or that engine, the engine is in service to the game. Is the game good? I don’t care what the engine is. The game’s good! Let’s play the game.

That's the problem, the games aren't good anymore!

How long are they planning to be hamstrung by the tech debt they've accrued? Sooner or later they're going to have to do something about it, surely?

Their games all look the same, in that it's always obvious that it's a Bethesda-engine game (whatever they're calling it this week). They're always janky, usually at least a console generation behind their contemporaries, and they always feel held together with duct tape and prayers.

Playing their games is an exercise in sighing and trying to ignore the jank. Everything always feels like it's wheezing along and trying to do anything beyond the obviously intended actions is likely to cause instability in the quest scripting.

I'm reminded of how Deus Ex players would try something only to find that the game was built to take that into account and allow for it. It's the opposite of how it feels playing Bethesda's games.

If CEOs only knew how much time and money they lose to tech debt, they would dedicate their careers to fighting it.

If I can't put a skull in a basket and balance it on a cheese wheel, then trick an NPC to walk on it, thus yeeting them into the stratosphere, is it even really a Bethesda game?

And gain new tech debt in the process!

Not another one, unreal is so bad for mods, please just overhaul your own engine, take the time, another year for Fallout 5 is nothing.

It better be a major point, their current engine is preventing their games from meaningfully competing now. Their 20 year old engine, makes 20 year old games with a mediocre coat of paint.

I know it would have the same issues as the Unreal Engine - all the training, engine building, and systems integration it'd take to get a game released, but I think it'd be cool if Bethesda were to make an Elder Scrolls game on their ID Tech engine. That codebase is pretty celebrated.

I would have absolutely zero interest in an Unreal Elder Scrolls or Fallout game.

There's already hundreds, maybe thousands of indie games trying to be that very thing available on steam today and they all suck.

Is the game good? I don’t care what the engine is. The game’s good! Let’s play the game. Well, that's the issue Bruce, isn't it? The games are not as good as you think they are.

Nesmith explained that the studio can’t focus on the needs of modders when creating a core game. Maybe you should wonder why so many of those mods are corrections, bug fixes and extensions to the engine though. Maybe that's a hint?

Dont they fucking own IDTech?

I'm gonna assume that this is because they are Microsoft now. They use a ton contractors on everything these days instead of actual employees but the catch is contractor can only stay there for 18 months and then have to leave or get hired so any experience on the project gets thrown away. Moving to unreal allows them to bring on a wider group of dev contractors so hopefully the ramp up isn't as long. This is just a theory but the same thing happened to Halo since that's moving to unreal to. If they just retained actual talent this wouldn't be a problem and the games wouldnt suck as much even if engine was less advanced.

I mean they already own the Quake engine, or ID Tech 8 or whatever, just do it on that.

I hope they don't go with unreal, the level of broken-ness of every game on UE5 really worries me