Skyrim lead designer says Bethesda can’t just switch engines because the current one is “perfectly tuned” to make the studio’s RPGs

Lead Skyrim designer and former senior Starfield systems designer Bruce Nesmith reckons Bethesda Game Studios won’t move to a new game engine – and explained why it doesn’t need to.

Speaking in a recent interview with VideoGamer, Nesmith outlines why Bethesda’s in-house engine still works for the studio despite its age. “We’re arguing about the game engine, let’s argue about the game,” he says. “The game engine is not the point, the game engine is in service to the game itself. You and I could both identify a hundred lousy games that used Unreal. Is it Unreal’s fault? No, it’s not Unreal’s fault.”