if they worked for a year to make it this far, then this is already doomed...
IMO the initial focus should have been totally reversed:
- first focus on animations and character quality, without JCM or other realistic join deformation options it will look like garbage compared to daz renders people are used to, and will make players question the switch to Unreal altogether,
- second - optimization, so you don't shut yourself out of customers right off the bat, make it run well on any device, including phones, then start increasing the quality, not the other way around,
- ditch the whole open world concept, it will only add wasted play time which will lead to frustration and abandonment of the game, no one is playing porn games to run around mostly empty environments even if they look nice (not to mention taxing on the hardware)
and optimizing something that is kitbashed together will be a nightmare, A LOT of work
basically - when people chose to play a 2d game (3d rendered), they lower their expectations a lot, and good renders or reasonably good animation will increase the enjoyment they get from the game, but when you start introducing real time 3d photorealism as a core element of the game, but then show poor quality character animation, bad lip sync, if any voice acting is even there in the first place, the overall experience will be just terrible