Ex-Starfield Dev Said Switching to UE5 Would Be a "Better" Choice for Bethesda

A fact that we just got to know a few days ago about Starfield is that many of the heavily criticized constant loading screens during fast travel were actually added in the later development period. And as told by Nate Purkeypile, a former Lead Artist at Bethesda who worked on titles such as Starfield, Skyrim, and the Fallout series, this was probably due to the limit of the game’s development engine, Creation Engine. 

This topic is also covered in a separate interview conducted by KIWI TALKZ, and not surprisingly, Purkeypile believed that, although the initial cost of switching to Unreal Engine 5 could be high, in the long run, it will pay off because everything is more streamlined and "things would end up being better" for Bethesda. 

Purkeypile left Bethesda in 2021 to set up his own studio Just Purkey Games. He told us in an interview last year that as an indie developer, Unreal Engine is a great choice for its high efficiency, which allows him to focus more on game development rather than building and maintaining technology. A metaphor he used to describe the process of building both tech and a game is like laying the train tracks for a train you’re already riding on; making it worse, the train is on fire.

In October, Microsoft’s 343 Industries made a surprise announcement that they're rebranding as Halo Studios and moving away from their proprietary Slipspace Engine in favor of Epic Games' Unreal Engine, which will be used for all future Halo games. 

Of course, Unreal Engine 5 is far from being a perfect choice — there are a few common complaints, like graphic issues, high resource demands, large file sizes that result in longer iteration times, and performance bottlenecks while using some advanced features like Nanite et cetera. However, before any self-developed engines could outwit UE, it might be a safer choice for game developers. 

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