The Case For and Against Bethesda Switching to Unreal Engine 5

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 12, 2025 2 Views 6 Min Read
The Case For and Against Bethesda Switching to Unreal Engine 5

Bethesda Game Studios does get a lot of flak these days, but it’s hard to deny the fact that the company has developed some of the most influential RPGs of all time. Its 2011 fantasy action game, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, has been a pillar of the RPG genre for several years, and has become an inspiration for countless other games, both big and small. Meanwhile, Bethesda‘s 2015 post-apocalyptic shooter Fallout 4 has maintained a thriving player base for nearly 10 years and counting, despite being the subject of criticism by some long-time Fallout fans. Both games have sold millions upon millions of units worldwide, and have secured their place in RPG history.

Although many of Bethesda’s games are successful, they haven’t exactly won many awards in the technical department. Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and even the recently-released Starfield have often been criticized by fans for their perceived lack of high-fidelity visuals. These games, all of which run on Bethesda’s in-house Creation Engine, don’t look that realistic compared to other modern AAA titles, and their notoriously frequent loading screens, persistent bugs, and other technical issues have led some people to call them outdated. Many have attributed these problems to the Creation Engine and, as such, some have argued that Bethesda should get rid of the software and switch to Unreal Engine 5 for future projects. Such a drastic pivot would no doubt be beneficial for BGS in some ways, but it may be detrimental in others.

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The Pros and Cons of Switching from Creation Engine to Unreal Engine 5

UE5 Could Make Bethesda Games More Realistic and Easier to Develop

Unreal Engine 5 is famous for its cutting-edge graphics, and for good reason. The Epic Games-developed engine utilizes all-new features like Lumen and Nanite, both of which can make a game look utterly stunning if utilized properly. That’s why, if Bethesda Game Studios does develop future games with Unreal Engine 5, it’s likely that its games will end up looking far better than they currently do. A Fallout or Elder Scrolls game with the visual fidelity, immersive lighting, and realistic-looking NPCs of, say, Black Myth: Wukong, would be a dream come true for many fans of the two franchises.

Switching to Unreal Engine 5 can not only improve the graphics of future Bethesda games, but help them release at a faster rate, as well. Proprietary engines, such as the Creation Engine, can be difficult to work with, largely because they require a lot of experience and training to use. This, however, isn’t the case with Unreal Engine 5. Because UE5 is very popular, developers and contract workers are often familiar with the engine right out of the gate. This, in turn, allows game development to move far more quickly, and as former Bethesda artist Nate Purkeypile put it, makes it “easier to hire people and ramp up.”

Creation Engine is Far More Moddable and Fine-Tuned for Bethesda Games Compared to UE5

Adopting Unreal Engine 5 may improve Bethesda’s development pipeline, but it wouldn’t exactly be the perfect solution to all of Creation Engine’s problems. UE5 has received a lot of criticism from some gamers and developers for a variety of reasons, and chief among them is the homogenization of engines. More and more AAA studios are switching to Unreal Engine as of late and abandoning their propriety engines in order to make development easier. While this widespread transition to UE5 is supported by many, some will argue that it can reduce the technical quality of games in the long run. Propietary engines are often fine-tuned to work with certain types of games, and they may offer some features that a generic engine cannot provide.

Arguably the biggest advantage that the Creation Engine has over UE5 is its mod support. Bethesda’s in-house software is perhaps the most flexible engine out there when it comes to modding capabilities, considerably more so than Unreal Engine 5. Since mod creators are such an integral part of the Bethesda community, it’s important for Bethesda Game Studios to ensure that its games remain easily moddable. However, if it decides to switch to UE5, it may no longer be able to do so.

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