Bethesda's Ashley Cheng was interviewed by GameObserver. Among other things he said that Bethesda are heavily invested in their modified Gamebryo engine and thus unlikely to ditch it anytime soon.<blockquote>GameObserver: How does the Gamebryo engine differ from other engines, like Unreal, given the types of games you tend to make?
Ashley Cheng: We’ve been building on top of Gamebryo for the past 8 years. There is no replacement for the learning and iteration that goes into building technology for that long. An engine is simply a tool. Anybody can use a paint brush and paper – it’s how you use it to create your art. It is the same with game engines.
We are very particular with our needs and they are mostly related to our editor. Our editor is powerful, allowing our content folks to quickly create quests, conversations, cities, dungeons, landscape, etc... you name it -- we do it faster than anybody else in the industry. No one can match us when it comes to vast, open-ended beautiful worlds full of NPCs, quests and dialogue.
GameObserver: Are you planning on changing or updating the engine in future projects, and if so, what changes are we to see in future games from a technical point of view.
Ashley Cheng: Absolutely. While we would never start from scratch completely, we often redesign and upgrade systems between projects. The important thing is to properly scope your time, resources and priorities before you start the work. We also spend a lot of time in preproduction, trying new things out -- this is one of the most important phases of our development.
GameObserver: One of the biggest complaints about Fallout 3 was that it resembles Oblivion too much. What made your team decide to make it play like The Elder Scrolls game? Was it a marketing decision (to attract Oblivion fans) or a technical decision (easier to use the same tools and programming techniques)?
Ashley Cheng: Well, we mostly made a Fallout game that we ourselves want to play. We also wanted to leverage our strengths as a studio, and one of our biggest strengths is making big, open ended worlds ripe for exploration. So whether we’re making an Elder Scrolls or Fallout title (or any other title for that matter), you can be assured there will be a huge open ended world for you to explore. You aren’t going to get a Final Fantasy style RPG from us because we’re not interested in making RPGs that way (though we do LOVE playing Final Fantasy).</blockquote>He also assured PS3 owners that the GotY version of Fallout 3 for the PS3 will include all the DLC.
Thanks to Glovz.
Ashley Cheng: We’ve been building on top of Gamebryo for the past 8 years. There is no replacement for the learning and iteration that goes into building technology for that long. An engine is simply a tool. Anybody can use a paint brush and paper – it’s how you use it to create your art. It is the same with game engines.
We are very particular with our needs and they are mostly related to our editor. Our editor is powerful, allowing our content folks to quickly create quests, conversations, cities, dungeons, landscape, etc... you name it -- we do it faster than anybody else in the industry. No one can match us when it comes to vast, open-ended beautiful worlds full of NPCs, quests and dialogue.
GameObserver: Are you planning on changing or updating the engine in future projects, and if so, what changes are we to see in future games from a technical point of view.
Ashley Cheng: Absolutely. While we would never start from scratch completely, we often redesign and upgrade systems between projects. The important thing is to properly scope your time, resources and priorities before you start the work. We also spend a lot of time in preproduction, trying new things out -- this is one of the most important phases of our development.
GameObserver: One of the biggest complaints about Fallout 3 was that it resembles Oblivion too much. What made your team decide to make it play like The Elder Scrolls game? Was it a marketing decision (to attract Oblivion fans) or a technical decision (easier to use the same tools and programming techniques)?
Ashley Cheng: Well, we mostly made a Fallout game that we ourselves want to play. We also wanted to leverage our strengths as a studio, and one of our biggest strengths is making big, open ended worlds ripe for exploration. So whether we’re making an Elder Scrolls or Fallout title (or any other title for that matter), you can be assured there will be a huge open ended world for you to explore. You aren’t going to get a Final Fantasy style RPG from us because we’re not interested in making RPGs that way (though we do LOVE playing Final Fantasy).</blockquote>He also assured PS3 owners that the GotY version of Fallout 3 for the PS3 will include all the DLC.
Thanks to Glovz.