So much this, a lot of people have no clue what a game engine actually does.

This, FO4 uses far less loading screens than earlier games as the hardware is more powerful. On PS3 / 360 you was limited to 512 MB.

They still use them to not having to handle AI and objects everywhere in an crowded area. Most loading screens are downtown.

^ This 100% this.

I keep telling people that loading screens and shadows don't really matter much for a video game engine and now since we have more than 512MB of RAM on PC's, the PlayStation 4 (PS4), and Xbox One there should be less loading screens and better looking shadows.

Since I still have not purchase Fallout 4 can you answer me this question about the loading screens, Physically Based Rendering (PBR), and shadows?

#1. On neogaf.com every now and then when I read about Fallout 4 mods on this topic http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1137773&page=25I see PC gamers who are modders, say that Bethesda Game Studios did not really implement Physically Based Rendering (PBR) fully, like Todd Howard said at the Bethesda Softworks E3 2015 conference. Have you used Physically Based Rendering (PBR) yet in Unreal Engine 4? I have, but I can't test anything for Fallout 4 since I still have not purchased Fallout 4 to this day today still.

#2. Todd Howard said loading screens exist only in big building in Fallout 4. Are there loading screens in caves? How many houses have loading screens? Caves in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt have no loading screens at all.

#3. Did Bethesda Game Studios finally add dynamic soft shadows that Todd Howard said would be in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in Fallout 4? I see some PC gamers say in comments "Bethesda Game Studios finally added dynamic soft shadows.".

No expert here but shadows depend on light its not baked, an spotlight cast an strong shadow in an dark area, grinders and other structures cast an complex shadow. This is pretty GPU demanding.

Smaller houses in diamound city and freetown has load doors. other places its mostly used for larger structures.

Note that one benefit of load doors is that its an own cell and can be reset or rearranged based on quest stages. This and legacy is probably why they use it there freetown is not very large.

I personally have no desire in, and see no reason to create a "new engine" for whatever the next TES game is. The gripes people have with Skyrim and FO4 to a certain extent, have nothing to do with the current iteration of the game engine, rather it is indicative of the AAA Game Industry in general. What I see, looking at what modders have been able to do with Skyrim, is a game company that either has no idea what tools it has available, or far more likely, they are rushed to cut corners by a publisher that doesn't give a damn about actually making a good, well polished game.

In a perfect world, I would like to see Bethesda look at some of the things modders have been able to do with Skyrim, like open cities, interesting NPCs, more dynamic effects, and refine them. As much as I am not a fan of FO4, the basic concept of making a slightly smaller world-space and enriching it with more content is something I think they should seriously consider with the next TES game. They have the tools to do it!

Basically, my opinion on this is that Skyrim's shortcomings aren't an engine problem, it is a difference of opinion. If Zenimax would back off, expecting a series of repeated, shoddy releases to fill the coffers, we would see a truly great Elder Scrolls game. I believe that there is still an amazing amount of creativity and potential great ideas that could come from Bethesda, but publishers and consumers rushing production, slapping a game onto the shelves as fast as possible has been the true affliction of late.

So I would like to see a new TES game with the current engine, WHEN IT IS DONE! Set some goals, be creative, and look to the modding community to see what can be done, and where people want improvements. Give us some depth and polish. But above all, frack the man and fight the power!

I pray to Akatosh this will not be the case, I want the game world to become bigger. If not 2x, at least 1.5x bigger. In Fallout 4 maybe it works, being mostly the ruin of an urban agglomeration, but in a fantasy game where the game world is a representation of a full province, I think bigger world space would make it feel more like an actual province, than a small theme park. I want bigger cities with more industry and agricultural outskirts, poor and shady districts, bustling harbors, etc. This can't be accomplished in the tiny Skyrim worldspace because one city alone would take half the map.

I care very much about the total number of quests and points of interest the game offers, but I don't need them to be evenly distributed all over the map. Having big savanah plains, treacherous swamps you can litterally get lost in, and dark forests with sparse settlements,dungeons or points of interest... is not a bad thing imo especially in a game with mounts, as long as the urban and rural settlements have lots of quests that will eventually send you everywhere anyway. I think the gameworld in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim is too cramped with dungeons.

Boy, I would love that. The last three games, as nice as their game worlds were, were way too small for my taste. I would have liked more breathing room between cities. This is especially crucial, I think, now that we can see practically all the way across the game worlds. Seeing the walls of one city from the front gate of another city just makes the games feel cramped to me.

I know this is a controversial idea, but I am in favor of a return to Oblivion-style procedural generation if it will help to make the maps larger. Myself, I like a bit of open space between cities. I think a few areas where there is nothing but monsters would make for a nice contrast with the more urban areas of a game. A large map would allow us to push important points-of-interest father apart, which I think is what these games desperately need.

Yeah I agree 100% as well. The cities are way to small in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, they feel like small villages, they don't even feel like small towns either.

I'd like to see a city with 200+ houses or 300+ houses and 500+ NPC's. If there were 9 cities in the next new video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios then each city to have 200+ houses to 300+ houses, with 500+ NPC's in each city and make the video game world map bigger than the video game world maps of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim combined.

I would be playing that video game every single day.

I'd be okay with procedural generation of wilderness areas, but points of interest should be at least partially handcrafted. I don't want to see copy-pasted dungeons. I should probably add that I don't mind linear dungeons, which is something I'm sure many would disagree with; I'm not a fan of mazes in general and I'd rather see a small, but unique location than repeatedly get lost in samey-looking big ones.

Yeah, I forgot to mention larger cities. In the next game I would be happy to see one huge major metropolis with, as you say, 200-300 buildings, alongside a few smaller towns. Personally, I think they shoot themselves in the foot trying to cram seven almost equally-important cities into each game. I would rather see one large city and a few villages.

That's what I had in mind too. In Oblivion, at least as far as I can tell, they first generated the landscape and then sculpted it by hand. They created the roads and flattened the land near near cities, ect, ect. I actually think that worked out pretty well, myself.

It would be really awesome if all the NPC's had names too, in these big cities. It's really immersive when they do.

How are some of you sure that there is "no way" to eliminate loading screens ? I didn't know it was possible until I played Witcher 3. You go from a cave to the wilderness to a big city and then into a tavern or shop in that city without any loading screen what so ever. Hell you can see people going on with their lives through the glass and you can hear them talk if you get close enough. When you do get a loading screen, usually on loading a game, it's so damn fast. There is also much less "pop in" issues as Bethesda games but whatever.

I understand Bethesda games tend to remember more and NPCs are more complex (although there are also substantially less of them) but witcher 3 is constantly regarded as a technical marvel while I'm not seeing that being said about Fallout 4 at all. Hell the tiny room that hosts the Diamond City Radio broadcasting station has a freaking loading screen.

So I have a question from you guys who claim that loading screens are not omitable in a Bethesda game, are you guys experts on the actual advanced programming used in a game like witcher 3 or bethesda games therefore you "know" it not possible ? Or you just say it because Bethesda never achieved that ?

I hope to the Eight and the One that they never try this again, seriously. For every square inch of procedural generated content added, you lose a point of depth and investment. I truly believe radiant questing is one of the WORST things to happen to the TES franchise, and full areas created this way have nothing going for them. Here is an example from Skyrim, one that I really love:

One of the Riekling caves on Solsteim, an otherwise fairly linear, Goblinoid filled cave, ends with what looks like a prayer group. All the Rieklings are bowing down to a stolen carriage, with a weird horse-like idol attached. What is this thing for? Why are they praying to it? And why the heck is there a simulation of poop in the form of charcoal at the rear of it?! If this was a radiant quest, or a procedurally generated dungeon, it would just be another goblin filled cave.

Emergent storytelling is one of the big reasons I love Bethesda games. You just can't have that alongside a world that is not hand-crafted.

Also, how many times are you really going to walk through that forest you get lost in? Once? Maybe twice? Then I bet dollars to septims you are just going to fast travel past it so you can clear out the next bland bandit camp for the context-less radiant quest.

What exactly is immersive about 500+ Nazeems, with about 10 voice actors between them (if they are voice acted at all), walking to a chopping block, chopping wood for six hours game time, then going home? There is a reason Serana is one of the most popular characters in Skyrim. She has history, feelings, opinions... Depth. For every 10 pointless NPCs doing pointless things, you lose at least one that you can care about and get invested in.

I really can't understand this "bigger is better" ideology when it comes to an RPG. We really lose out on so much, not just in world depth, lore, and character, but it also leaves significantly less room for making your player character interesting. How can you handcraft character choice, input, and meaningful world changing events in the game, when you have spent all of your development time and money on padding a few more kms to walking space?

Anyway, that is just my opinion on the matter, don't mean to offend.