When announced back at E3 2018, the concept of Starfield excited many. A Bethesda RPG set in space is a solid idea, though little has been said on the game since its reveal. Recently, Todd Howard broke the silence on the project, revealing that the Creation Engine required a rework during the development of Starfield.
In an interview on the Xbox podcast, Todd Howard discussed why the major rework was needed. Todd says that “once we got on the new systems, the things we found we could do...” trailing off before stating that the engine required a major rewrite to make use of the ray tracing features available on next gen consoles. Howard states that pre-production on Starfield began back in 2018, so the game was likely being developed before the technology was known about. Despite this rework having taken place, Starfield gameplay will not be shown in 2020.
Todd Howard concludes the interview by stating that Bethesda is “closer to showing” the upcoming game than it was "at the beginning of this conversation," indicating that the game is still deep in development. With Todd Howard ensuring fans back in 2018 that Starfield would have next gen visuals and gameplay, the engine upgrade is certainly necessary. Despite being described as “major” by the industry icon, it will still be interesting to see how expansive the engine update truly is and how much it really changes.
Even with this rework on the way, many gamers are begging Bethesda to do away with the engine it has been using for decades. While many of Fallout 76’s problems came down to greed and a lack of support, the outdated engine the game was built on certainly did not help matters. With countless glitches and outdated textures coming with every game built on the Creation Engine, it is hard to argue against Bethesda moving on from the technology. With the ancient engine set to be used for both Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6, however, it will be some time before a change could possibly come.
If PlayStation consoles even see this new version of the engine described by Todd Howard is currently unclear, as the recent Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda makes PS5 versions of the studio’s games less likely. Microsoft has since said that games made by Bethesda will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for multi-platform releases, so which IPs become console exclusives is currently unclear. Given that Starfield has been in development for some time, however, a PS5 version has likely been worked on already and could easily still release.
Interestingly, reports have said that Sony attempted to get Starfield as an exclusive game for the PlayStation 5. Had that ended up being what happened, it is hard to say how differently the situation regarding Bethesda games, and their reworked engine, would be.
Starfield is currently in development.