A modern engine probably wouldn’t hurt.
If it does not have similar levels of moddability then it will absolutely hurt.
I think it’s safe to assume they know that and would bear it in mind when choosing or building an engine. Their games are famous for modding, after all.
That’s a years if not decade+ long project though, including major investments of time and money that you could pour into actual games. You can’t just stomp a new game engine out of the ground, especially not with how complex video games in of itself have become, and if you want it to be as moddable as their current one.
That’s a years if not decade+ long project though
Yep.
You can’t just stomp a new game engine out of the ground
I don’t know what you mean by that, but creating new game engines and migrating from one to another have both been done before.
Is either of those tasks fast or cheap? Of course not.
Are they worthwhile? Sometimes.
Are they possible? Absolutely.
especially not […] if you want it to be as moddable as their current one.
Well, I can understand why you might assume that if you don’t have a lot of experience in software development, but it’s just not true. Making an engine that allows for very moddable games is mainly about planning for it during the design, and either building good tools for the game data or publishing the specs so other people can. It’s not arcane magic.
(And for what it’s worth, while Creation Engine is quite moddable, it has enormous room for improvement in that area. Actually working with it can be a very frustrating experience.)
