Based on what Bethesda have said we're talking about 2-3x FO3 or FNV.

I think it's been stated that it'll be as big as Skyrimm physically, just sans the mountains that took up much of the map space.

This feeling was palpable in fallout 3.

Exiting the vault and looking around... No direction, no idea where to go.

Just pick a direction and start walking.

It was one of those quintessential moments where the player and character are actually feeling the same thing and have no idea where to go or what to do next.

It svcks that you only get that moment once though. Every subsequent play through you know what to do and where you are.

It is kind of funny that the op is worried about quantity.


Quality is the only place BGS games ever struggle, quantity has never been an issue.

FO4s landmass will regrettably (only) be about the same size of Skyrim. The deciding factor for this is simply the limitations of the aging Gamebryo engine that they are (re)using in FO4.

It is in my opinion a missed chance as consoles are no longer the limiting factor with PS4/XBOX 360 but the engine however is.

That being sad the number of places or size of them vertically is said to be increased to compensate.

1. They aren't using Gamebryo.

2. The engine has nothing to do with total map size, as Oblivion had 22 square miles of game area(though lots of it was the parts of other provinces next to Cyrodiil behind the invisible walls), comapred ot Skyrim's 14.

In all fairness, the Engine IS a highly modified version of Gamebryo, but the most important distinction is that this one appears to be fully 64 bit now. Since the Engine is based on an object/asset database, the use of native 64 bit code will VASTLY increase the efficiency and speed of accessing said database (not to mention the removal of memory space limitations that 32 bit access imposes). While the Engine does not specifically have a directly relation to map size, it does have much to do with how much memory space can be utilized to populate the world around the player and THAT is where a 64 bit Engine will make the most difference.

The one change to a fully 64 bit Engine is going to provide more advantages than we, as players, can fully understand before playing it.

The "Creation Engine is an in-house engine created by Bethesda Game Studios (XnGine being the previous in-house engine by Bethesda). After using Gamebryo to create The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Fallout 3, Bethesda decided that Gamebryo's graphics were becoming too outdated and began work on Creation Engine for their next game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The engine is based on Gamebryo and still has code from it inside Creation Engine." - Wikipedia (I know, not the *best* source, but it was fast).

So yes, the Creation Engine is based on, and has some code from Gamebryo, it is not Gamebryo. It is, in fact, a different engine. In addition, Fallout 4 is using a 'NextGen' version of the Creation Engine, which has several features the previous version did not.

Who wants to bet Bethesda still pays royalties to Gambryo for each Creation Engine game sold? They may have bought the code and then modified it (very heavily), but when I look at how a Morrowind mod works and how a Skryim mod works, the statement that they are NOT using the same basic Engine (even if several generations more advanced) is difficult to say with a straight face.

Yes it's a different Engine, but it still uses all the old Gambryo mechanics, so getting all upset when someone calls it Gambryo is kind of silly.

Not in any way upset, FYI. Just trying to clarify, based on what I know.

And Valve's Source engine uses tons of code from the goldsrc engine, which uses tons of code from the DOOM engine.

Doesn't meant Source engine is the Doom engine, thats not how graphics engines work, or are defined.

Underneath, they're both Toyotas, but you wouldn't call a Lexus a Corolla.

Bethseda never disappointed me with the size of the game world (maybe only F:NV a bit).

The fact that Todd said that buildings (or most of it) are more accesible then ever is great and is a huge improvement of the massive DC area but were most buildings were closed of for the player.

The weather/color of the areas will also be a nice change and add diversity into the game.

so im not worried at all

Wouldnt they both be called a toyota if mechanically there both toyotas?

His point is that they are but the interiors are so vastly different, the marketing is so vastly different the exterior and presentation and pricing is so vastly different that they are two different entities.

I liken it to the fact that you are based on genetic material from your mother and father. But you are not either of those people.

The new engine is derived partially from gamebryo but it is the next generation and has hopefully built on past mistakes. I'm mostly hopeful that they have pinned down crashes that have plagued us in the past.

I just hope there's the subway lines again as Boston seems to have them (Searched as soon as I heard it was Boston lol). This should add an entire underground again like in FO3!

This to me is where NV was lacking not only was there invisible walls for the mountains etc as mentioned before but other than the Thorn (or with mods) there wasn't much for sewers or underground locations. This was the best part of adding the AWOP mod as it added an entire city worth of stuff to do underneath.

I know this has been argued a 100 times here but the FO3 map had much much more going on than the NV map and the DC metro was a big part of that.

You are exactly right, but your comparison of Doom -> Source (despite some common code) is simply laughable as DOOM wasn't even a 3D engine at all (2.5D and that's being generous) I'm not talking strictly about common code here, but the basis of HOW the engine works, controls and stores assets, loads mod files and even how scripting, saves and even the basics of the console work. over 3/4 of console commands that worked in Morrowind work in Skyrim....that's more than some common code, but you can certainly deny the quite obvious close connection if it offends you to the extent of self-delusion.

Yes, stating that the Creation Engine is Gamebryo is inaccurate, but denying where the Creation Engine came from (and still has some VERY close ties too) is also inaccurate. I'm hoping this change to 64 bit is going to be the biggest move forward we have seen yet.

But how much of that was from Gamebryo, and how much of it was from the code Bethesda added to Gamebryo to make it work for their games? Not sure those console commands would work for Epic Mickey, Civ IV, or Catherine. What all of those games do have in common, are a lot of small dynamic elements that piece together, and demand a ton of drawcalls.

I tried to find it in the posts but to no avail, could someone clarify this for me? It seems it's been alluded in this thread, and I haven't seen it anywhere else, that Fallout 4 will not have separately loaded cells like in previous games. Is this true, and is there a source or at least some info that leads people to believe that it's possible? If this is true, then I'II be excited because it wouId be so much more immersive and interesting and, weII, current-gen as weII as seamIess if they did away with every singIe buiIding/fIoor/interior area having its own Ioaded ceII.

It won't be completely seamless. There will still be load doors. But, Bethesda's said that they also have a lot of areas that don't load - so there will be many interiors that are seamless transitions, like the interiors of houses or maybe a few more dilapidated skyscraqers. I'm thinking this will be a lot more surface level stuff, while things like large factories, caves, or vaults are all loaded in separate interior cells.

Bethesda's talked a few times about how they have more areas that are part of the over-world, but they always explain that they still have interior spaces and their workflow hasn't changed in that regard.

Fallout 4 has 15 times the memory space of Fallout 3 in terms of ram usage and 6 times the memory of what the Xbox 360 could do. Size won't be an issue, although the more important point is what's in the world. You can have a lot of content like Dragon Age Inquisition but if it's not interesting then it's going to be dull. I don't see that happening with Fallout 4 but we will see.

I haven't seen any confirmation on anything stating that cell loading has drastically changed, but the fact that we do know the game has a 64bit EXE (I guess that is an assumption we are all making since the game requires a 64 bit OS....but I think it's a reasonable assumption to make), means that memory space should not be at such a premium as the 32 bit engine had. This will allow for external cells to be much more complex and populated with objects without causing memory crashes or even crippling performance spikes. Note this also applies to internal cells, but they do not have the same issues of having to render potentially half a dozen nearby cells simultaneously. This means that the external world space can have highly complex buildings / ruins built within them that allow for the elimination for the need for many interior cells (that will cause a loading screen transition if at all like the previous engine).

There have been specific Dev comments that implied there will be far fewer loading screens and when they do happen, the will be much shorter. Beyond that, I'm not aware that there has been any kind of "official" information on the subject. To be honest, until the Map tools actually ship, we will be unlikely to know much about the changes to cell programming changes (tho it's likely that there will be modder tools developed rather quickly that can give some insight into whether there have been drastic changes in that area).

I would be very surprised if the basic cell structure we know from previous Creation Engine games has been changed to the point that "cells" no longer exist at all.

Thanks you two. I haven't seen or found any dev posts or replies concerning it, or anything official, but I feel I can trust you both and your well-thought-out replies enough. It always bothered me that in previous games you had to load even a small shack that's smaller than the average kitchen in its own instance, so my hope is that most areas are part of the overworld and only huge areas such as maybe subway systems or huge facilities or factories would merit their own instance separate from the overworld. Fingers crossed that most areas are not loaded.

In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty2hU0Y7kAg&index=16&list=PLSHdOA4o6T_fdEQXP5sW2UHXx9kRgMzwQ, Todd Howard's talking about the weather system and lighting as he's saying "Even though we have areas that load, we have a lot more things that don't load". I think they touch on it in one of the more recent "The Team Behind Fallout 4" videos in that playlist.

i think you might of hit on it, the space the mountains take up not just the footprint of them but the vertical space, the map is going to be bigger almost for sure then skyrim, maybe by 2 or 3 times, todd wasn't being very specific and for a reason, it would be a spoiler, he didn't want to give the size, everyone is saying "yeah its the same size as skyrim"...i doubt that, maybe if you flatten out the mountains and use that vertical space thats a lot of space, the mountains were super tall, so todd downplayed the size, no doubt the game is going to be dense in the city areas but its got to have some good open spaces also no doubt its gonna be a lot bigger then any game they have ever done by at least twice the size and not just in content but in physical world size.