The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim’s Former Design Lead Thinks Studio Should Keep Using Creation Engine

Bethesda rarely changes the underlying technology for its games. They’ve been using their own Creation Engine since The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, and it’s likely that future games like The Elder Scrolls 6 and new Fallout titles will continue to use it. Bruce Nesmith, a former lead designer on Skyrim, explains that switching to a different engine is a huge undertaking, so Bethesda is expected to stick with the Creation Engine for the foreseeable future.

According to Nesmith, changing a game’s engine is a huge undertaking. In a Press Box PR interview, he clarified that it requires a significant amount of work from many people – potentially dozens – just to get the new engine functioning properly.

You’re creating a problem where your developers can’t properly test the game. They might struggle to even work on it consistently, because the game engine isn’t finished or isn’t working well enough yet.

As a long-time fan, it’s interesting to hear that Bethesda has been constantly improving the Creation Engine over the years. They’ve already made some big changes, like adding the whole multiplayer aspect to Fallout 76, so it’s clearly not a static piece of technology.

That was a huge undertaking. We experienced this with Fallout 76. The game required a major overhaul of its engine to support multiplayer, which created significant challenges for the development team.

The Creation Engine has been used and refined by Bethesda for many years – decades, in fact – making it a more practical choice to continue using it. Any advantages from switching to Unreal Engine likely won’t be seen for at least two games.

Given how much effort has already been invested, even Nesmith hesitates to suggest moving away from the Creation Engine. Instead of switching to Unreal Engine, he proposes simply adding any desired features directly to the existing toolkit.

I think we should continue developing the Creation Engine. If we see a feature in Unreal Engine that we really need, we should try to implement it in the Creation Engine as well. Let’s focus on adding those specific, necessary features rather than trying to completely overhaul everything. If Unreal has something the Creation Engine doesn’t, and it’s important for us, then let’s make it happen.

Dean Carter, the project lead for the popular Fallout 4 mod Fallout: London, thinks Bethesda should consider switching from their current Creation Engine to something like Unreal Engine 5 for future games.

When asked about potential new features in Fallout 5, Carter expressed concern about Bethesda continuing to use the Creation Engine. While acknowledging it’s their own technology and has benefits, he believes the engine is beginning to feel outdated and needs a significant update. He clarified that it’s not a bad engine, but it could definitely be improved.

If you’re interested in hearing more from Nesmith, you can find his opinions on Starfield and whether Morrowind should be remade.

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2026-02-03 15:41