Elder Scrolls 6 Engine Overhaul Reportedly Includes Unreal Tech

Bethesda is reportedly overhauling The Elder Scrolls 6 engine, with support from Microsoft and plans to integrate select Unreal Engine technologies. That’s according to a new report from a well-known insider, who also shared additional details about the purported project and talked about how they all connect to the next chapter of Starfield, which Bethesda is expected to launch well before the Skyrim sequel.

The information comes from Jez Corden, who has a generally reliable track record with Microsoft-related scoops. He previously reported on The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered months before its official announcement and has lately been sharing early details about TES 6 from his sources. This trend continued with the December 19 episode of The Xbox Two podcast, where he offered new insights into Creation Engine, Starfield, and TES 6—elements that, to some extent, are interconnected.

Microsoft Reportedly Helping Bethesda Implement Unreal Tech into TES 6 Engine

According to Corden’s sources, Bethesda is currently updating Creation Engine while “leveraging aspects of Unreal Engine” and integrating them into its in-house technology. Microsoft, the owner of Bethesda parent ZeniMax Media, is reportedly supporting the effort with internal specialists. Among them is said to be The Coalition’s Technical Director, Kate Rayner, who was name-dropped during the podcast episode. The unspecified Unreal tech is expected to feature in the studio’s next project, as TES 6 has long been confirmed to use Creation Engine.

Starfield Is Reportedly a Testbed for TES 6, Fallout 5 Engine Tech

The ongoing engine revamp will reportedly first be deployed into Bethesda’s 2023 space-faring RPG. “Starfield is having like a something of a technical overhaul,” Corden said, adding that “some of those improvements are also things that are going to inform how the next Fallout plays and how the next Elder Scrolls plays.” One detail that may support this claim is Starfield‘s Steam patch history, which shows a “lumens” branch updated only once, on July 29, 2024. For reference, Lumen—without the “s”—is an Unreal Engine lighting system introduced in UE5. It enables dynamic, real-time light and shadow behavior without requiring developers to manually pre-bake lighting. While it supports ray tracing and is sometimes used interchangeably with it in informal contexts, it does not require it.

The way Corden describes the reported initiative, Bethesda’s adoption of Unreal technologies will not result in TES 6 relying on Unreal Engine the way TES 4: Oblivion Remastered did. That remaster, developed by Virtuos, uses Unreal Engine 5 for graphics while relying on Gamebryo—the predecessor to the Creation Engine used in the original Oblivion—for game logic. Conversely, TES 6 is expected to run exclusively on Creation Engine, updated with select third-party technologies.

Bethesda’s TES 6 Engine Overhaul May Still Be Smaller than the Starfield Engine Revamp

The full extent of the reported Creation Engine overhaul remains unclear. In a November 2020 interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Bethesda Executive Producer Todd Howard described the engine revamp for Starfield as “probably the largest” such effort ever undertaken by the studio. This was later cited as one of the main reasons Starfield took over seven years to develop, a notably long cycle even by modern AAA standards. In a June 2021 interview with The Telegraph, Howard again discussed the overhaul, called Creation Engine 2, saying it was designed to serve as a shared foundation for both Starfield and the studio’s next game. While he noted that Bethesda would continue updating the engine during the development of TES 6, like it does with any new game, Howard’s comments suggested that the bulk of modernization work occurred during Starfield‘s production and would not be repeated at the same scale for the company’s next title.

In mid-July 2025, Corden reported that The Elder Scrolls 6 had reached a “quite playable” state, calling it a significant development milestone. However, since Bethesda confirmed that active production only began in late 2023 following Starfield‘s release, the “quite playable” label likely refers to a pre-alpha build, based on typical modern AAA development timelines. The game itself still appears unlikely to launch before 2028. Asked about the open-world RPG’s current status in a December 2025 interview with Game Informer, Howard described TES 6 as “progressing really well.”

Source: GamesIndustry.biz, The Telegraph, Game Informer