Todd Howard says Creation Engine overhaul for Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 is 'largest we've probably ever had'

During an interview for this year's Develop: Brighton conference, Todd Howard shared some more info on the eagerly awaited space RPG Starfield, including the work being done on Bethesda's Creation Engine. 

In the interview, Howard mentioned the ongoing overhaul to Bethesda's game engine, which has been used for The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. The improvements, Howard said, include everything from rendering to animation to pathfinding to procedural generation.

"We have more people doing engine work now by a factor of five," Howard said. "The overhaul on our engine is the largest we've probably ever had. Maybe larger than [the overhaul going from] Morrowind to Oblivion."

Unfortunately, Howard wasn't able to speak at length about Starfield, with most of the interview focusing on older Bethesda games and Howard's career. We do know Starfield will be singleplayer-only, with no multiplayer component planned, and thanks to Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda, both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 will be available on Game Pass from launch. 

You can watch the full interview above, which covers Todd Howard's career in detail, with the mentions of Starfield sprinkled throughout.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Todd Howard said Starfield's map would be its biggest ever, which was inaccurate. Remarks about the use of procedural generation in Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 attributed to Howard were also inaccurate, and have been removed.