Id Software Design Director Matt Hooper told IGN that one of the benefits of not licensing the engine to external studios means their games will look more unique than anything else on the market.
"I personally think that's a good thing. Not only from just the amount of resources you have to spend supporting the technology, but from just giving you an edge," said Hooper. "We're the only ones right now exploiting the goodness of id Tech 5, and that feels good. Our game is going to look different than other games just by default."
"It doesn't matter what we do with the technology, I guarantee it will look different than other games," he added.
Hooper noted that the company originally wanted to license their engine out to anyone with an interest, but the acquisition by Zenimax Media helped influence their decision.
"Our original path was actually to develop the tech to license it. We do have still a support and tools team," he said. "When we decided to take a lot of our IPs internal and grow teams internally, we actually are not licensing our tech, but we have multiple teams that are utilizing the technology.
"When we merged with Bethesda, it was some of their decision too saying 'why don't you keep some of your edge? John Carmack has done so many things for the industry, let's keep that edge on our side and make great games.' That's how you're successful in this business," Hooper added.
Bethesda Game Director Todd Howard explained in a separate interview with IGN that his game would not use id Tech 5. The studio's new engine built for its upcoming title is more beneficial to creating huge, open-world games, such as Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, while id Tech 5 is better for more contained environments.
"We decided to really reboot our technology after Fallout 3, so we had been making plans for that and started doing some things. The id thing came along later, so it's a mix of that plus the kinds of games we do are a bit bigger and more dynamic.
"Id Tech 5 is the best thing in the world at doing a very static environment that looks pretty and you're going to run through. But for the kinds of things I like to do, I like the world to be more dynamic."