KnightoftheWind wrote: ↑
January 22nd, 2024, 07:22
The engine does play a big role, though. I recently saw a video of an ex-Fallout 76 dev working on his own indie game, and he touched on just how much easier Unreal Engine 5 is to work with compared to the Creation Engine. Because you have to keep in mind that the Creation Engine is just a mess of Frankenstein'd spaghetti code, made by dozens of different people that no longer work at Bethesda. Any tricks implemented by one programmer may not be understood or utilised by a new hire working there in 2024. I'd imagine any veterans at the company must be stressed to hell and back, because they're probably being leaned on by the diversity pajeets on the hour every hour. Management (i.e Todd) are set in their ways though, and they probably deluded themselves into thinking it's easier just to carry on, like a twisted form of the sunk cost fallacy. They don't want to start fresh, because they're afraid they might mess up, or are unable to rely on their low skilled employees and the third parties in India. Bethesda has never been a particularly good developer, it's a miracle how they've lasted this long without closing. And of course everything you mentioned is true too.
Creation engine is a toolset designed specifically for one type of game. It has its own quirks and issues, but for the most part it's still a purpose-built open world RPG tech that does its job. Unreal is a hodgepodge of stuff designed to be used by literally anyone, with a purpose of building any type of game. Naturally it's 'easier' to use - there's already a ton of documentation, a ton of tutorials, a knowledge base, a pool of already experienced devs, asset stores, etc etc.
Both engines likely look like a frankenstein's spaghetti code under the hood - but Bethesda's legacy code problem can be solved with a proper refactoring and rewriting, while Unreal will continue being a mess because it's messy by design.