Bethesda’s Todd Howard has reaffirmed that The Elder Scrolls 6 will use Creation Engine 3, the latest version of the game engine that has powered most of the studio’s previous games.
This reveal came about during an interview with Todd Howard on today’s Kinda Funny Gamescast (via Kotaku). “We’ve spent the last several years bringing Creation Engine 2, which powers Starfield, up to Creation Engine 3, which is going to power Elder Scrolls 6 and beyond,” Howard said. “Obviously we do all of the rendering things. We’re really happy with all of the new stuff that we’re doing, but also world systems, loading, how we bring things into the world, [and] how we get that detail close to the camera immediately.”
Creation Engine is the game engine that Bethesda created during the development of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Since then, it has built upon the engine’s capabilities for games like Fallout 76 and Starfield, even if players are often critical of the technology underpinning Bethesda’s games.
Howard has previously alluded to the fact that he’d want The Elder Scrolls 6 to be built with Creation Engine, but The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered was created in Unreal Engine 5. As such, it felt like an engine change could potentially be on the table for Bethesda Game Studios’ next game.
Ultimately, the lauded RPG studio has just decided to upgrade the game engine technology it’s most familiar with for its next game, making The Elder Scrolls 6 the first Creation Engine 3 game.
The Elder Scrolls 6 still does not have a confirmed release window or platforms despite being announced almost eight years ago, with Howard telling Kinda Funny that it’s still “going to be a while yet.”