Yeah, and it's entirely fair with how they're handling this since it's a small bonus for subscribers that will wind up in the next major update for Steam.
It's not fair, because Steam users also bought the game, but whatever, go ahead and excuse it.
I don't understand what the player character is meant to be. A mummy? Why can't I configure it to my liking? That's a huge step BACKWARD!
They will allow you to do it eventually, one of the big features for the UE5 patch is more customization. The setting is one where basically reality and mythology is blurred and people consistently walk on and across that line, so you will be "rewarded" with blessings sexually and in appearance.
It's just yet one of a billion other things on their road map.
Because Epic no longer provides updates or support for UE4, which makes for long term problems that compound themselves over time. Especially with how frequently Microsoft is changing weird things on Windows 11, it's a wise move to stick with the version of the game engine that Epic would resolve issues for.
If this was purely about "milking" the way you people love to spout (seriously, you'd think this place was a dairy theft ring or something), there are far better ways to handle it than switching game engines. Everyone takes such a terrible perspective on UE4->UE5 because this is the first time indie devs have had to handle it. UE4 stuck around for most of a decade and the previous major versions that caused this headache were back when it was a far more expensive tool that was essentially limited to large studios.
You do realize that content is something the devs have explicitly stated will be returning, right? It's just that that was midgame content in a region that is currently inaccessible. Imagine complaining that the classic wow servers don't have anything from Outlands, while ignoring the fact that Outlands doesn't exist.
Seriously, how do you people look at a changelog
like the one in this update and come out of this thinking the devs are trying to waste your time for more money?
That's now how game development works. UE4 doesn't need updates, and yes they do still provide support, it just costs more, but at this point most veteran developers don't need their help since they use a heavily customized version of the engine anyway. This isn't like games themselves where you constantly find bugs then fix them, it's just a toolset and foundational engine and it works as well as it has for years now and in anything else, now is the best time to use UE4 since it is at its best state ever. Literally go read these dev's change log of THIS VERY UPDATE and see how they joked about the frustration of going from UE5.1 to 5.3 or whatever it was, lmao.
Current consensus is that UE5 is a mess and incredibly hard to work with. The payoffs can be great, but then you end up with poorly optimized messes like Lords of the Fallen, whose devs have gone on record to say the transition to UE5 slapped them across all four cheeks and maybe wasn't the best idea despite the game looking great because it runs like crap and has a ton of other issues that engineering and development time was probably stolen from.
Swapping to UE5 after already starting of 4 is even worse, as I've said already, this isn't just me posturing, it's a common sentiment by developers and is why so many DIDN'T do that.
CDPR is planning on using UE5 for their next games, and guess what, they had their preplanning teams literally sit down and just toy with and learn the engine before doing any on the game itself for at least half a year, lmao.
I do agree that they probably aren't doing this on purpose in a malicious way, but it is indeed idiotic of them. I'm also super positive that the fact that their patreon remains a ridiculous income stream--probably way more than sales of the complete game will ever make them--contributed to the decision and a general lack of urgency since they will probably make more money by taking longer; literally having their cake and eating it too.
For them, maybe it will ultimately be worth it, for us, we might get a slightly better looking game that runs way worse unless they plan on putting some serious development effort into handling UE5's current challenges with performance optimization and they're just a smallish indie team.
But okay.
