With Todd Howard noting as part of the Develop: Brighton online conference that both the upcoming sci-fi epic Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 in development at Bethesda Game Studios will benefit from a newly optimised engine - "from rendering to animation to pathing to procedural generation". And in the case of the latter, Starfield's explorable world/galaxy/universe will be considerably larger than even Fallout 76's four-times the size of Skyrim world.



Interestingly large portions of the environments are being proceduraly generated, though landmarks and cities and other places of interest will all be handcrafted ala the BGS way. The engine overhaul extends to the detail players will find in each city or town hub, with Howard hinting at more life in terms of NPCs than ever before - which will play into the stories being told.

In terms of the engine and what we can expect, Todd Horward also notes that the jump will be bigger than that of when the studio went from Morrowind on Xbox to Oblivion on Xbox 360. The tech seen in Starfield will also power The Elder Scrolls 6 and that although details there are still a long way off the studio is also focused and commited to supporting mods as it moves forward.