Long are the days that devs would need to write their own tools and even engines to put the game running. Some (like Naughty Dog) would even hack the hardware in order to bypass limitations of it.

Re-using engines has been around for basically as long as game development has existed. This idea of some mythical age when game development was more "pure" is a fantasy. What has changed is that expectations on AAA titles has grown to the point where it's extremely difficult to roll your own engine if you are committed to many, many years of work.

Not to mention, it certainly doesn't guarantee that the engine performs well. Look at Starfield or Baldur's Gate 3. Both have noticeable issues with performance, and both are built on in-house engines by their respective studios.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, this guy is basically harping on the concept of re-usable code. That's why we praise RollerCoaster Tycoon's dev, he wrote the entire thing in assembly. Beyond that, everything since 2d has used an engine. Hell, to not use an engine would be wasteful and delay games. What, every game should rewrite an engine?

Even Halo CE, 2002, used an engine. The Blam! engine. Dude's delusional if he thinks people were drawing individual pixels on the monitor.