Your second point there is spot on.
Though one huge thing that is not factored here is the fact that one is built off a very mature pre-existing game engine (used in hundreds of released games) and one is being made on a custom game engine with many new parts.
The thing about Unreal Engine is that not only has there been millions of hours of development on it from Epic’s staff, but the code behind it can be modified and upgraded by any developer using it. This means bug fixes, improvements in every manner including performance, and even new features are added by thousands of developers outside of the company.
Also consider that in 2017 the success of Fortnite meant that Epic could devote more resources into the engine. Partly because the game used it and needed improvements sooner than later. The $1.5 million a day the game made justified putting more resources into the already robust engine. It truly helped accelerate planned features for the engine.
Nevermind gameplay, physics, and audio improvements that Slipspace needed, but there were many “firsts” covered by the graphics alone. They had to do all this work themselves with the staff they had vs millions of hours put into UE4’s graphics engine that was tried and tested on many released games on all sorts of hardware setups across consoles and PC (and even mobile).
The other massive advantage is that support studios, contractors, and new staff already know UE and its tools. Tools are things that exist outside your game engine to help assist in your workflow. An artist may need a tool to convert assets into a format compatible and optimized for a graphics engine, for example. If you have a custom engine like Slipspace then you’ll have custom tools with their own interfaces and workflows. So you need to train every single person using that tool. You need to provide support for it and even fix bugs for it. With SS this is all happening for the first time whereas with UE, a mature product, these tools have already gone through the grinder. And then you’ll need to train people on SS itself. Provide support. Fix bugs. 343 can’t focus on new features like ray-tracing until the engine gets to a point of stability, robustness, etc. So all the support studios go through this process. All new staff. All contractors.
But for UE, people already know it so they’re 60-70% of the way there. The 30-40% remaining deals with the particular game itself. Which is a whole lot but it goes to show how much pre-existing knowledge helps.
So because of the massive headstart that a pre-existing and mature engine affords a game, I can’t say the situations are comparable.
When it comes to a comparable engine, I’m thinking that the IW Engine that the Call of Duty series uses might be more comparable especially because it was built on pretty old legacy code used since the X360 days. Any contractors or new employees jumping in have to learn it. But as we all know that game has an incredible number of support studios and over a thousand people working on it. So maybe, while the circumstances in regards to the engine are comparable, the overall situation is not comparable. MS didn’t turn Turn10 into a permanent support studio.
You’re absolutely right that the game is so pitifully light on content. Light on content at launch, light on content since launch, and light on content planned for the next 6 months (apart from the endless content Forge will provide in a manner of weeks). Whether it’s compared to games built on existing engines like Unreal Engine or to games built on a custom engine, it looks silly.
Delaying Season 3 until March tells me that they’re wanting to address all of the underlying issues and impediments that is preventing this game from being a proper live service title. With a proper 3-month length with proper content it tells me that they desire a Season 3 that compares to any other live service title.
And it can only happen when all of these underlying issues are addressed. Stable and robust tools, and a stable and robust engine, with stable and robust online play… abandoning a core feature like splitscreen co-op tells me that their focused on getting this live service aspect right.
What I can’t explain is how and why Infection is taking so long and is rumored for Season 4. While I think it’s a bit overrated as a mode, it would definitely be more popular than modes like Last Spartan Standing (whoever prioritized the development of LSS hopefully learned a lesson).
Holy Guac this post got long. 