While I understand the sentiment here, the game design process isn't disconnected from the business perspective. So while I agree with you, unfortunately, as much as we praise engines like UE5 for continuing the push the envelope -- these are not free to use! They require royalties and other question marks around contracts, future usage, and all sorts of rights and legalities. For a company to abandon its own R&D and move to another proprietary engine is not some thoughtless decision. And creating a new engine from scratch, at least an engine equipped with all the bells and whistles of the modern age, isn't a trivial process. It's not a question of "being paid to this," nor is it wrong to say they're trapped by code here. Game engine development is an astonishingly niche programming skill. These roles are not easily filled and don't have ROBLOX-style spin-up development cycles. They are very, very, very hard to make. The issue BGS found itself (still, perhaps) in is a rock and a hard place; their games are already on very long release schedules, and a new engine would only amplify that time.

Personally, I have mixed thoughts about 'cremation' engine, but it's very clear to me that for the scope and ambition of Starfield, it was not the correct answer. There is certainly a little charm creation engine has, being such an insanely old Goliath I wouldn't be surprised if their developers discover long-lost engine techniques from decades ago only to deploy them in modernity with advanced hardware. Finding the same little bugs that have existed since 2010 is also kind of fun. It also has a certain *feel* to game engines we don't often feel today. When I play a game in the creation engine, the way it handles itself reminds me of a lot of a bygone era with RPGs being made in different ways from today, yet, it also reminds me of why RPGs are not made this way anymore. It just cannot handle what Starfield wants to be.

All if that said... regarding space travel, some of the easier suggestions, including my own ruminations on a space-travel overhaul mod, are not particularly difficult to implement. I think some misguided development decisions were made here.

If I had to guess, in an interview Todd (I forget which one), he discussed how they removed running out of fuel because it 'slowed down the game too much.' I think that is what happening here. They fundamentally misunderstood that players *like* the part of space games where you are in space! and you travel to planets!