Starfield's Engine May Yet Surprise Us; Creation Engine 2 Analyzed
Starfield's engine may be more refined than we thought. Interesting analysis and comparison against previous Bethesda games.
Source: Steam | Starfield
The launch of Starfield is still quite far, as the game is scheduled to debut in 2023, but reviews are already appearing, focusing on specific elements and mechanics inside the game. On the technical side, the most important part of the title is the polished engine, and this has often been the subject of jokes when discussing Bethesda games. Will it be different with Starfield? YouTuber Colt Eastwood claims that Creation Engine 2 may turn out to be surprisingly polished.
Creation Engine 2 and facial animation
Colt Eastwood, whose video regarding Starfield is available above, has analyzed the Creation Engine's capabilities, comparing it to its predecessors in games such as Skyrim or Fallout 4. On the one hand, you might think that such comparisons don't make sense, because Skyrim launched in 2011, Fallout 4 in 2015, and Starfield is not due to debut until next year, but the devil is in the details, or rather, the fact that the engine was changing all the time.
As Eastwood noted, Bethesda's previous games suffered from clumsy facial animations, among other things, but this aspect has been significantly improved in Starfield, as can also be seen in the video. An interesting comparison was used here against Red Dead Redemption 2, in which facial expressions stand at a very high level and continue to impress players. In RDR2 it could be fine-tuned through motion capture technology, which captures the actor's facial movements, while the Creation Engine and its second edition do not use it.. The difference in the quality of facial expressions in Starfield compared to Fallout 4 is noticeable to the naked eye and looks really good.
A world teeming with life
Games from under the Bethesda banner have often placed considerable emphasis on making locations full of NPCs seem believable. That's why many NPCs had their activities tailored to a specific schedule. In Skyrim some NPCs engaged in work during the day, went to the inn in the evening, then had dinner and went to bed. According to a YouTuber, the world in Starfield is supposed to be significantly more vivid, all thanks to even more powerful Radiant AI technology, which is responsible for the behavior of NPCs. Their actions are supposed to be more believable regardless of whether we observe them or interact with them.
Refined combat system
Colt Eastwood was also impressed by the more refined combat system, which allows for easy and convenient weapon changes during skirmishes and a more realistic feeling when firing guns. What he particularly pointed out is how good the skirmishes in space look like, although unfortunately the footage he based it on was quite short.
Final touches
There is still a lot of time left until the release of Starfield, so the developers may refine it even more. On the day of release there will certainly be bugs, but I hope to get my hands on a game that I will be able to return to for years to come. In technical terms, modders will certainly take care of this, but I'm also quietly hoping that an interesting storyline will eventually grab my heart as well, because in the case of previous Bethesda games my curiosity was mainly aroused by the exploration.
