A little while ago Todd said that TESVI would use procedural generation. Many fans have read this as "world is gonna be boring," so I'm here to tell you what procedural generation can really mean for TESVI.

Disclaimer: I have zero knowledge of the tech behind TESVI. Instead, I'm going to be speaking about what other games have done, as well as the general capabilities of software like SideFX Houdini when paired with game engines.

Yes, procedural generation is great for making big worlds. Not just making a landmass and placing a bunch of rocks/trees, but eroding it intelligently, and placing those rocks, trees, and plants according to real world geological principles.

(pics: Adrien Lambert on Artstation)

Once you've got that, you can use those same systems to generate realistic weather, fog, water, wind, etc. patterns.

Best of all, you can iterate on this endlessly, and have everything procedurally and realistically adapt for the cost of some render time.

I would bet money that every modern open world game uses procgen for terrain. Here's a good video on Farcry 5's systems:

https://80.lv/articles/houdini-procedural-world-generation-of-far-cry-5/

And another from Horizon Zero Dawn:

https://www.sidefx.com/community/horizon-zero-dawn-guerrilla-games/

Even Assassin's Creed, which that interview with Todd called out as a hand crafted game, relies heavily on procedural generation for its biomes! Here's an example from Christian Marzy on Artstation.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ZN2DZ 

Procgen is not only great for placing assets, it's also fantastic for creating them, saving your artists months (or years) worth of work.

Rocks and cliffs are an ideal candidate. Trees area already procedural thanks to SpeedTree.

(art: David Garrett on Artstation)

With a good tech artist, nothing is out of reach. Check out these amazing procgen houses by Anastasia Opera. Instead of spending months handcrafting 10 unique houses for a small city, you can generate endless houses, for huge cities.

http://gumroad.com/l/ngKUJ 

Spline tools are another big win. Draw a line, have procgen tools create roads, walls, power lines, pipes, ivy, spider webs, or even entire cave systems along it. Goodbye, tilesets!

Check out this procedural pipe tool. Imagine these are Dwemer ruins. https://vimeo.com/210679269 

Your 3D artists can then focus their skills on creating unique content and bringing things to the next level, rather than drudge work. World artists and designers, too, are freed up to iterate on their content quickly.

(Procgen gothic architecture, Adrien Lambert, ArtStation)

Procgen isn't just good for environments. It can be used for character hair/fur, cloth, animation retargeting, material creation, naming, VFX, cinematic conversation systems, and more.

Check out this GDC talk about procedural cinematics from AC: Oddysey: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1026381/Procedural-Generation-of-Cinematic-Dialogues

And, yes, quests. Watchdogs Legion is built almost entirely on procedural systems, and while I wouldn't want TESVI to go that far, it does prove that you can create memorable emergent storytelling and interesting NPCs if the systems are given enough time and attention.

To sum up: procedural generation is perhaps the greatest tool currently available to dev of big games. Used well, it does NOT create boring content, but rather frees us up to create more of the hand crafted stuff.

Unknown how and how much TESVI will use it, but I'm enthusiastic.