The Elder Scrolls VI

I stated the game's visuals were universally criticized, which puts into question whether the current engine is appropriate or not.

I didn't comment on Fallout 4's sales success. And I certainly didn't comment on the eternal, off-topic and quite honestly meaningless meta-discussion of visuals vs. commercial success.

Yes, nowadays everyone gains internet points by saying muh gameplay and graphicz dun't mattur. You're the 999999th person to make such a claim in the internet, particularly in a sarcastic tone.

 

I was not being ironic, but I should've mentioned Skyrim, which was the first game from TES/Fallout 3+ that I thought looked good, specially when you consider that Skyrim targeted the same hardware as Oblivion and the Fallouts and used the "same engine", the art style, the detail overall was a vast improvement, and I think FO4 builds on that, looking at FO3/NV and 4 for me there is a very clear improvement in visuals, which is not a big surprise given the target hardware with more ram and plenty of GPU, but still, when I played it, just after playing Witcher 3 which is a great and more current looking game, I didn't feel too negative towards how it looked it's just a different beast, I don't think you can compare the level of interactivity and complexity of it with any idtech, frostbite, or even Witcher 3.

for example, you mentioned mods, good luck having this level of control and accessibility with the other engines mentioned!


most of the reviews for Fallout 4 were very positive, while some mentioned graphics not being great they didn't criticize it too much, and not all mentioned it as a clear negative, I don't remember any outrage towards how the game looked at launch, I think people don't really have the highest expectations for graphics with TES/Fallout.


I remember being excited about Bioware adopting Frostbite, but now, looking at the rumors of huge difficulties for them to adapt to it, and how their games turned out, I'm not sure if it was the best move.

 

IMO Skyrim looked great for its time, and so did Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3 when they released. New Vegas is IMO closer to a Fallout 3 standalone expansion than a new title.
Fallout 4 was the first Bethesda open-world RPG game to not "push boundaries" in visuals for the studio's 14 years of history, which is why people were so disappointed.


That's why I think Bethesda will be trying to bring either a new engine or a significantly revamped one. They're traditionally a studio that pushes for better graphics.
At the very least, they should be offering ENB's Boris Vorontsov a very well-paid job. The guy is making $300/month on Patreon, for god's sake.

Bioware adopting Frostbite should have led to delays, not games with poorish writing (Inquisition + Andromeda), absence of facial animations (Andromeda) and questionable character design decisions.
Of course, some of this can be explained through resource allocation logistics, but not all of it.

 

Could this actually be the first true next gen game since no platforms were announced? If the teaser was real time I mean, it just looked too good.

 

Starfield was just announced by Todd Howard as nextgen game from Bethesda Softworks. TES6 will be released after it.

 

That doesn't mean TES6 will be on a true nextgen engine though.

 

Well in the FO76 thread there's mention of a new rendering pipeline, lighting model etc. So hopefully there's some significant changes like PBR.

 

FO76 still by and large looks current gen (entry current gen almost), the engine used for ES6 judging by the teaser is way superior if what was shown was real time.

 

Yeah now that I've watched the FO76 presentation, I really don't think there's many advances in their renderer. I don't think much could be drawn from the ES6 very brief teaser as we know their distance detail and weather rendering is quite decent.

 

Todd Howard said the next game was Starfield which is next generation. Elder Scrolls VI is after that. He's been consistent with the that messaging - Starfield being in the future, ES6 being waaaay in the future - for a few years.

 

TES6 being a few years away, even after their "next gen" Starfield, I think it's fair to expect it to be a on a new engine now.

 

I also hope that the volumetric fog, which is sooooo good in Skyrim, doesn't get lost in translation. I'll be patiently and eagerly waiting for the new TES. Even my whatsapp profile picture is based on Skyrim, more specifically, it's this one.

 

Todd Howard makes love to his wife with Gamebryo, so no

 

There are far better implementations nowadays. RDR2 is especially amazing IMO.

 

When Breath of the Wild can pull off volumetric fog on the Switch, TES6 should be able to pll off the same feat on machines 20 times as powerful I'd say. Not even Bethesda levels of coding sloppiness should be able to get in the way here.
They've had the volumetric fog since FO4 by the way.

 

I want the next entry to have a character creator at least as complex and aesthetically pleasing to the eye as this.

You have at least 10tf+, 16gig of gddr6 ram of base hardware to work with Bethesda, give us those muscle jiggles!

 

Fully modded skyrim can do incredible amount of detail work on faces and a complete physics system was added for hair and clothes. Bethesda don't do anything close to what the modders have done with their own game.