GameObserver.com conducted an interview with Ashley Cheng, Production Director at Bethesda. They asked him questions on the Gamebryo engine, why they prefer it over other engines and the advantages it presented while making Fallout 3.

Cheng also talks a bit about what inspired their designers while making Fallout 3, what is in store for the PS3 and elaborates on various other topics relating to their game design process.

Ashley Cheng: Gamebryo allowed us to get up and running very quickly with Morrowind. Since then, we’ve taken this core technology and added new features on top of it. We’ve actually had the guys at Gamebryo come to us, and ask if we would be interested in a particular shader or feature, only to turn them down and say, sorry, but we’ve already written our own version. With each new project, we scope how much time we have and decide which systems to upgrade. A major reason many projects are delayed or never ship is because the developers decide to start from scratch. Games these days cost way too much for that kind of reboot. For most programmers, it’s easier to write new code than to read old code -- it takes a lot of discipline to selectively upgrade parts of your technology and to maintain others.

psxmeup via gameobserver.com »